Post #112 February 19, 2018

“Update on Downloads and More Thoughts About Series Writing”

I recently uploaded a new title in my Farpool series to Smashwords.com.  It’s entitled The Farpool: Exodus and has been doing pretty well.  Below, I’ve tabulated the total, cumulative downloads for all my ebook titles, roughly by series and category.

Tales of the Quantum Corps:  4853

The Farpool Stories: 1161

Nanotroopers:  6281

All Others*:  1143

*This catch-all category includes 3 horror stories and one collection of short science fiction.

Total cumulative downloads as of 12 February are at 13,438.

Those are the hard numbers.  As you can see, much of my sf is in series form.  Although I’ve posted on the challenges of series writing before, I’d like to add a few more thoughts on this topic. 

Many science fiction writers do series stories.  There are some definite advantages.  One is that you can ‘amortize’ your research and development of fictional worlds (very important in sf) across many titles.  It takes time and hard work to develop an alien world set in a galaxy far, far away and be consistent and somewhat scientifically accurate.  Series writing in sf enables you to have a ready-made setting to drop your story into…all you need is a plot line.  Usually, series also have continuing characters.  You don’t have to re-describe Flash Whizbang each time, since presumably the readers already know a lot about him.  Think Tom Swift, Nancy Drew or even better, Sherlock Holmes. 

But there are definitely challenges and pitfalls in writing a series too.  You’re constrained (to some degree) by what you’ve written before.  The longer a series goes, the more detailed your notes had better be, since nobody can keep all those myriad details in their head…except your readers, who will surely let you know that in story #1, Flash was blond with two heads and in Story #5, you describe Flash as brown haired with tentacles.  Take notes.  Consistency is vital in series writing.

That said, you’d like to have a character who can meet challenges and grow and change in resolving them, as real people do.  Which means, you can either plot this growth out ahead of time or just write the stories and be surprised by what Flash develops into as he evolves in your mind and on paper.  Actually, I do a little of both and I suspect many authors of series do as well.  Ideally, your main characters have enough imaginary room to evolve as the series goes on.  We see this in TV as well, which lends itself well to series stories and characters.  When developing and writing series fiction, know your main characters well.

Another issue in writing series fiction is coming up with ideas for plots.  This really should be pretty well thought out ahead of time.  There should be an overall story arc for the series, into which your individual stories will fit, perhaps chronologically or in some way thematically.  The story arc should be something that can be stated in a single sentence. Here’s what I said at the beginning of each episode of my Nanotroopers series:

1. Nanotroopers is a series of 15,000-20,000 word episodes detailing the adventures of Johnny Winger and his experiences as a nanotrooper with the United Nations Quantum Corps.
2. Each episode will be about 40-50 pages, approximately 20,000 words in length.
3. A new episode will be available and uploaded every 3 weeks.
4. There will be 22 episodes.  The story will be completely serialized in about 14 months.
5. Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc. 
6. The main plotline: U.N. Quantum Corps must defeat the criminal cartel Red Hammer’s efforts to steal or disable their new nanorobotic ANAD systems.
    
   Does this work?  Apparently, 6281 downloaders think it does.
    
   Sometimes series just develop without authorial intention.  That’s what happened to my series The Farpool Stories.  Originally, there was only The Farpool.  But the reader response was sufficient for me to consider writing another story with the same characters and same setting, with some expansions and adjustments.  After the second book, I decided to make the Farpool stories a formal series and plot out a story trajectory that would make sense.  Now the third book has been uploaded and I’m planning two more.  And, through the wonders of wormholes and time travel, the series will come back to the place it originally started, albeit in a different time stream.  You gotta love science fiction.
    
   The next post to The Word Shed comes on February 26, 2018.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.