Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Serious about Series?

We all have our pet peeves. Many readers detest books written in first person, others hate secret baby plots. I won’t watch a movie or even a TV episode unless I can see it from the beginning. (And DH is a channel surfer…yeah, we won’t go there.)

So when I’m reading submissions, one thing that gets me is feeling like I’ve missed the beginning of the story. Sometimes I suspect I’m reading a sequel only to discover that the author has simply provided too much backstory upfront. When authors devote long passages to the characters’ pasts at the expense of present action, it irritates grumpy editors like me (hmm, not the best way to impress an acquiring editor). Other times of course I’m reading the nth episode in a series.

Submitting a sequel to an editor who hasn’t worked on book one presents a challenge. There are good reasons why an author may choose to do this—the original publisher may have gone out of business, the author may have issues with her publisher, or her editor may have left the house. So when an author submits a ms to an editor who is unfamiliar with the series, she has to meet the additional burden of hooking the editor’s interest in midstream. And the acquiring editor might be as anal and grumpy as I am.

The best way to hook my interest in mid-series is to focus on the present action, setting up the conflict and introducing the hero and heroine in much the same way that you do in book one. Since I edit primarily romances for Samhain, I often see problems with the way the romantic conflict is structured in a series.

There’s almost an inherent contradiction between the concepts of series and romance. In a true romance, the hero/heroine (or hero/hero, heroine/heroine or ménage) achieve their happy-ever-after by the last page. Tagging another story with the same main characters onto that HEA creates problems. The hero of book one may die, or the couple may split up, and the heroine can find true love again in book two, but the cumulative effect of those outcomes is to contradict the “ever after” promise implicit in the ending of book one—not something most traditional romance readers (as opposed to other fiction readers) would appreciate. Authors who do this invite hate mail from their readers.

More commonly, authors of romance series featuring the same characters have the couple break up temporarily and get back together. One of the protagonists may suffer amnesia so the relationship needs to begin all over again, a romantic conflict Charlie Cochrane uses in Lessons In Discovery. However, it can be difficult to keep a traditional romance structure alive over the course of a series, because the author can run out of fresh conflicts for the same relationship.

A romance series with the same main characters may morph into another genre. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this—as long as the author is aware she’s no longer submitting a romance ms and accordingly targets an appropriate publisher. At Samhain for instance we are currently acquiring urban fantasy, erotica, fantasy and science fiction but not suspense or women’s fiction with romantic elements.

An easier way to write a romance series is to have a different set of protagonists in future episodes. This is the type of series submission I more commonly receive. It seems like it should be easier to craft an opening that will hook an editor’s interest with this type of series. After all, we have a different set of protagonists’ goals, motivation and conflict to focus on. Yet too many of these submissions are weighed down with baggage from the past. Perhaps because the author is so familiar with book one, she will often be tempted to summarize its entire plot and background. She often will begin the sequel in the point of view of book one’s heroine, instead of the heroine of book two. In addition to the characters we meet in this new installment, the author often includes all the characters from book one, if only to have them stop over to eat a meal with the current heroine and update us on their lives—even if they really don’t propel the plot in any way.

Say that book one tells the love story of Zack and Haley, and book two is Sean’s story with a different heroine. In book two, don’t introduce Sean as the guy who comforted Haley after her ex-husband beat her, took her in, grew to love her, thought he was the father when Haley became pregnant, couldn’t believe it when his buddy Zack announced their love and came to help Haley move out, got drunk when he heard that Zack delivered her baby, helped search for Zack when Zack’s plane was reported missing, disappeared for a while after learning Zack survived both the crash and an avalanche, and switched jobs and moved to a different town when Haley and Zack announced their engagement. All readers need to know in book two is that Sean is new in town and was badly hurt when the woman he thought he loved hooked up with his friend. Sure, other details may come out during the course of the story but they should be divulged in an organic fashion, not dumped on the reader in exposition.

Some authors go too far the other way and pick up book two where one left off, as though it’s one continuing manuscript (which perhaps it was, until the author learned we weren’t accepting 250k-word ms.) There’s a fine line to tread between too much and too little information. You can’t assume all readers know your heroine has a burning desire for revenge, so you need to re-establish her motivation in book two. If someone has a magical power, that also needs to be established. So do relationships. But much of this can be conveyed by showing the characters in action and slipping in concise clues to convey that Rex is Sophia’s boss, Lance is psychic, and Trefar is a planet in the Betami system.

Eloisa James writes terrific series in which the supporting cast step forward and feature as the protagonist of the next book. For example all four sisters appear in each of the Essex Sisters series, although each book focuses on only one romance. And some of the heroes, such as the Earl of Mayne, feature in several of the earlier volumes before becoming the hero of book four.

Despite the challenges inherent in writing a series, readers love them (as does a certain grumpy editor) and they can boost sales of backlist titles. Since many readers will pick up book three before book one, it’s a good idea to write your series with anal readers like me in mind. Even if I’ve edited book one, I still don’t want to get bogged down in a précis of what-happened-before. As much as possible, write your manuscript like a stand-alone romance. Include only the information from previous installments that is essential to tell us this couple’s tale. Only include characters from previous books if they drive this story forward.

Don’t make us feel like we’ve missed the first hour of the movie. Instead, hook your reader in so that she not only loves book three, but goes back and buys books one and two as well.