How To Plan And Write A Series, Video # 3 \\ Planning Your Book Series

hello everybody welcome back to heart breathings it is video number three of how to plan and write a series and this is one that i know a lot of you have been looking forward to so today i am going to talk to you about how do you actually plan out your series how much do you need to know in advance how do you get all the details straight how do you follow story threads and breadcrumbs and keep track of character arcs and oh my gosh it feels like a lot to track well i happen to have a lot of experience with this because not only have i written multiple series and have worked in more than five series i have a couple of completed series as well as a series that has over one million words in the world i have been writing one series in particular my shadow demon saga for the last 10 years so i do have a lot of experience and i've made a lot of mistakes along the way so hopefully you guys will benefit from some of that so we're just gonna dive straight in if you're interested in learning how to plan out your series just stay tuned [Music] okay so as we dive into this idea of how to actually plan out your series i think the best way to sort of unravel all the questions that you might have is to address them head on so what i'm going to do is i'm going to present questions that have been asked to me about how to plan it out and i'm just going to answer them as briefly as i can i'm a talker i can't help it but i hope that this becomes a valuable tool and resource for you as you are planning your own series also keep in mind that if you download this workbook it is going to walk you through a lot of the process and actually walk you through a lot of the planning for your series so make sure you grab that from the link down below so one of the common questions that i get asked is how do i know if i have enough for a series one of the first things that you should do is identify what type of series you're writing so again the workbook is going to walk you through this but basically figure out what's the main genre are you writing a mystery are you writing an urban fantasy are you writing a romance series what's your main genre then decide what type of series are you writing and if you don't understand the differences between types of series head back to video one in this video series you can review those types which i also have a review in the workbook for you so a dynamic series for example is the kind that where every book builds upon itself and it's one big story arc if you think that you're writing a dynamic series then all you need to think about is do i have enough plot or enough of a story world here that it is going to take me multiple books to tell the whole story so for example if you were writing something similar to the lord of the rings where you know the main story arc or series arc of that book or that series is getting this ring that rules them all to the place where you can destroy it and is this band of adventurers going to be able to fulfill that story promise of destroying the ring in one single book or is it going to take them multiple adventures multiple books to get to where they need to go and another thing if you're thinking about character arc and you think about someone like frodo who is the one charged with carrying that ring is he going to grow into the character that he needs to be in order to destroy the ring in one single book is this something you can tell over the course of a hundred thousand words or three hundred thousand words if you wanna make it a really long book or is this something where he's gonna have to grow a little bit and face one big bad and then he's gonna have to face another big challenge and another one and another one you don't have to necessarily know how many books it's going to be right from the start you just need to know is this going to take me multiple storylines to get to the final battle so think about harry potter since most of us are familiar with that there was no way that you were going to get harry to hogwarts and have him grow up enough in skill and maturity and understanding his whole team and his resources and meeting everyone he needs to meet and defeat baltimore in one single book there's just too much story there to tell in a single novel so you would know at that point even if you don't know how many books it's going to take him to grow up enough and meet the right people and go through enough things and get the right resources together and the right knowledge to defeat baltimore you don't know how many books is going to take you to get there but you know it's going to be multiple books then you can go ahead and start your series plan because yes you have enough to keep going when it comes to a standalone or episodic style series you just need to understand are there enough characters or enough mysteries for my characters to solve that i can write multiple so for example if you're writing a contemporary romance series and you have this one specific couple in mind if you're thinking about a series and whether or not you have enough content to write a whole series just think about the relationships that those two characters have because if it's romance you've got a hero and a heroine or a hero and a hero or however your couple is mixed so think about each individual main character and who are their friends who are their family who lives in the town with them what what types of experiences do they have and who do they know so you might discover through that that actually your hero has 12 brothers and sisters and you really want to make this a family related series where you're going to feature a couple based on this family every single time or like my fair hope series there are six books in that series and each book features a different couple in a group of high school friends so think about your story world and whether or not you have enough people and relationships there that interest you and that will interest the reader that will tie together to make a complete series same thing with the mystery series if you have a main detective or a sleuth of some kind can you think up enough mysteries that are happening in this town or in this situation that they're going to be able to solve multiple things if you do then you have enough for a series another question that people ask a lot is how do i know how many books it's going to take me to tell this story this is a much more complicated question and it's one that i don't have a definitive answer for you one thing i will tell you is trust your intuition because sometimes with certain types of stories you're going to just be able to sit down and really map it out you're going to say well there are six best friends that i'm telling their stories so each book is going to be a different friend story so i have six books and you're just going to be able to plan it out and you know that that's the way it's going to be you also might have a detective series or a small town romance series where it's open-ended that you might have you know you can think of five different murders that your detective's going to solve but you also know that there's the possibility that they're going to solve 20 different mysteries because you have tons of ideas you don't have to have all the answers right from the start so if you you know you can think of three different mysteries but you think you're gonna like writing this character enough to write multiple then just plan for those three and then let it evolve naturally with a dynamic series like i was talking about with say the lord of the rings i don't know if tolkien knew it was going to be a trilogy he probably did because i think fantasy authors tend to plan things out a little bit more detail but really all you need to do is you need to think about with a dynamic series where does my character or group of characters start in the beginning and what is going to be that overarching series arc so you're going to need a story arc per book but with a dynamic series you also need that overarching series arc and if you have no idea what i'm talking about right now go watch video number two in the series i will link it for you down below so in a dynamic series you need both of those things you need that individual story arc and you need the overarching story arc and that overarching story arc usually is something that takes place over the course of the entire series so all you need to think about is where is my character or group of characters in the beginning where do they end up and then you could create a rough sketch of what moves them forward in each individual book and like i said i do have some worksheets that you can use to help you with this but sometimes you're gonna think well this will take me four books and you're gonna get to book three or four and realize oh my gosh there's seven or eight books involved in this because it is a process sometimes sometimes for me i have been able to very easily say okay i can clearly see how this is going to be a trilogy so i'm going to write three books but with my first series the shadow demon saga which used to be called the peachful high demon saga i thought it was going to be a trilogy when i first started it i didn't have a lot of experience planning series i didn't really know what i was doing and i thought well it'll be cool to write a trilogy and then i'll move on to something else but as i started writing the story began to grow and i started to understand okay this is definitely going to be six books then by the time i hit book six and sort of completed a series arc i knew that this was really just the beginning of my story world and so i elongated that series and now it has grown into 12 books with multiple spin-offs so i didn't have all of that planned from the start i didn't know i was basically just flying by the seat of my pants and allowing the story world to develop however it needed to develop like i've said in the beginning and in the intro i hope to be able to take the experience that i've had over the last 10 years writing that series and get even better at planning and that's the thing about being a writer and a creator is it's okay to trust your instincts i think where people go wrong is when they say well i think i'm gonna make more money if i write a six book series so i'm gonna take this little tiny kernel of an idea and it doesn't even excite me but i'm gonna make it into a six book series and then you try to force it into something that it's not now later in this video series we are going to talk about the emotional toll of a series so trust me and please please hear me when i tell you that it's not worth it to take on a long series just because you think you're going to make a lot of money writing it it's an emotional process to dedicate so much of your life especially if you are an emotional person like i am an emotional creator you really are going to pour so much of yourself into the writing of the series you are going to become these characters in some ways they are going to live inside your head and inside your heart for potentially decades to come so make sure that whatever you're writing you're not just forcing something onto the page to try to make money and i know that there are people that will disagree with me and say well i'm writing for money and i don't care and that's fine you're not the person i'm talking to the person that i'm talking to is someone who is writing because you love it please choose something that sparks imagination for you that you think i could live with this for a while and then trust yourself that you're going to get it done and that it's going to be something fulfilling for you the next question that i want to address that i get to ask all the time and that i ask myself frankly is how much of the series do you need to have planned before you start writing this is a tough one because the more you can plan out often the better because you're going to be able to especially when we get into talking about actually publishing this series the more you have an idea of which characters you're going to be featuring and what story arc it is and how many books the more you'll be able to plan out the marketing type packaging things like how many covers am i going to need how many titles am i going to have to brand just right or what's my publishing strategy going to be and that sort of thing also if you have a plan before you get started and you know how many books it's going to take for your character to defeat the big bad then you can really go through and plan out all the little breadcrumbs all the little twists and turns in the story exactly where you want to put those clues in and you can really the same way that you plot your individual books you could plot out those major points of realization and turning points and character change and plants and reveals you could do all of that stuff so much stronger because you've planned out all five to ten books or whatever it is ahead of time however it doesn't always work like this and this is one of the main things i hope you take away from this whole series but also from my channel in general is that you are whoever you are and you can get better as a writer you will most certainly learn the more you write the more you publish the more you will learn about how to be a great writer but you also have to understand who you are fundamentally and what your own personal strengths and weaknesses are some people will be great at planning all those things ahead they will be able to write out every single detail like i have a friend who writes romantic suspense and she can tell you the backstory of the hero that's coming up six books from now she knows the navy seals in her team and she knows everything about them including who their father was and all of that sort of thing and she has it all planned out so that when she's writing any little scene with that character five books before his book you know before his feature book she can already be planting in his personality and all these things that you need to know about him it's a brilliant and beautiful thing to watch and i wish i could be more like that however what i found personally is that if i plan too far ahead too much minutia too much detail i was really kind of just wasting time and wasting energy because what would inevitably happen in my personal writing experience and process is that when i sit down for example to write book 11 of this series things will inevitably turn out differently than i expect and this is just part of my personal writing experience and i have a feeling some of you might relate to this as well i cannot plan exactly where things are going because part of the inspiration of my process is that the twists become revealed to me as i write i can't pre-plan them they're as much of a surprise to me as they are to the readers and this is one of the reasons why my readers call me the queen of twists because i have a lot of twists in my shadow demon saga that you don't see coming well guess what i never saw them coming either and i think that if i try to manipulate them and plan them too far in advance which i have tried many many times it always writes differently than i expect my characters tend to have a mind of their own i have tried many many times to like but this is how it's gonna go i'm gonna try to write it exactly this way but if it just doesn't flow on the paper i have to just give it up and say okay muse you take over now and it becomes this more mystical process and i know that sounds crazy to some people but it's almost as if the story exists outside of me and i'm just the one trying to discover it you know like find it but i am not the one creating it because i cannot force that story to be whatever i wanted it to be my friend who writes the romantic suspense she doesn't force her story she just sees them differently than i do she can see them more clearly ahead of time and they just unfold the way that she wants to she stays flexible if things change but she very rarely has things come out of the blue that she has to replot and so what i would find is if i would plot four or five books in advance i would get to the first book in my plotting and the whole story would change and because i'm writing a dynamic series where book two depends on what happened in book one the minute everything changes in book one that means every other books like domino's falling down every other book has to change then i would just have to go back through and replot all of those books and it's just waste of months of time so for me what i have learned to do instead is i have a rough sketch of an idea of where these characters are going and what i think is going to happen but i also have an emotional understanding of the fact that when i sit down to write book 10 or book 11 or whatever book i'm on the story is going to change and i have to surrender to that and be okay with it so when it comes to how much of your story do you need to have planned this is going to be something that you need to discover for yourself and i know this might not be the answer you wanted to hear but what i would suggest for you is you take the workbook or you write you start a new notebook of your own and you start writing out your ideas and you say okay here's kind of the main story idea the main series arc how many books can i you know write out these ideas or if you've got a detective mystery how many mysteries could i imagine him solving and then you just start sketching out those ideas and see what pops into your mind if you are naturally someone who is going to get all the ideas and have everything planned out and your world is built and all the magic system is coming to you then it will come and you will be able to write it all down and capture it and plan it out as much to your heart's content if you sit down and nothing is coming to you then maybe you're more like me and you just have to write it and get it on the page to discover it the main thing you need to do in my opinion is just listen to yourself trust yourself don't try to force anything that isn't coming but also don't get so obsessed with trying to make it perfect and trying to figure out every single detail that you never start writing because procrasti planning is a real thing and it's a real thing when it comes to your series as well you could spend months if not years planning out your little town and your magic system and this person owns the grocery store and this guy's the doctor and this girl lives next to him and all these things you could have all of this plotted out and you could be thinking about characters hair color and who's going to have babies together or here's the magic system and here's the color of the dresses these women wear but none of it's going to mean anything if you never actually sit down to write those books so there's got to be a balance there listen to yourself listen to your own intuition have a way to capture the ideas as they come in be it a notebook or a series bible or some kind of brainstorming thing it could be a google doc however it is have a way that you capture these notes and make sure you keep track of it but stay flexible enough that you are allowed to change your mind if your series progresses in a way other than what you expected how much you plan ahead also depends on the complexity of the series so like i said if you're writing short contemporary romances that are all based on a family it might be easier to sort of plan things out because there's six brothers and sisters so therefore there will be six books and you know exactly who this brother is going to get together with and this sister is going to get together with this guy and once you have that sort of plotted out then you can easily go in and you can start sketching out ideas for what's going to be the conflict what are these people's personalities what's their wound you know you can start going through those character sheets and figuring out that romance plus romance has a specific type of structure to it usually so maybe you can go through and begin to plan that but if you're writing a fantasy world that's going to have 250 000 word books and you know there's going to be 12 books in the series and you're going across multiple dimensions and lots of different races of people and a very intricate magic system then you're going to have a much more complex job when it comes to planning out your series than someone who's setting it in a contemporary world with a limited number of characters so it's not good or bad either way it's just one might be easier to plan ahead whereas the other one is going to take more time so just give it the time that it needs and like i said if you can't see all the details don't let that stop you from getting started because you might find that as you begin to write some of these answers about the world itself and the types of characters and the story you're telling might come to you in the writing so a similar question to this is how much of your series should you have written before you start publishing but we're not going to discuss that in this video because that is too long of a topic if you're interested in that topic however i do have a video linked for you down below about should you rapid release which does talk a little bit about publishing strategy i also just happened to open up my publish and thrive course it just opened up today and we'll be starting on august 10th we cover a lot more of that publishing strategy in that course so if you're interested in that kind of discussion definitely check that out so in terms of how much you have written before you start publishing it's really going to be your decision there is no one way that's best because each way you decide to do it is going to have pros and cons it's just what works best for you and what do you want to do and if you think well maybe i kind of want to try it this way then go for it try it the best way to learn what works for you is to try different things so don't hold yourself back or feel like you just need a crystal ball to figure it out because spoiler alert no crystal ball is going to appear before you and give you all the answers as to what's best for you the only way you can learn what works for you is to try it and see if you try it and it doesn't work for you try it a different way now the next set of questions that you'll need to answer and how you're going to actually plan out all of these things that go along with your story is something that i will guide you through in this workbook so for the second half of this video i am going to turn my camera down so you can actually see this workbook and i'm going to walk you through some of the ways that i would suggest you plan and make these decisions about your series and how you can use this workbook to plot out all those story threads how you're going to figure out your entire series and so on and i will give you some examples of how i would do it with my own series so let's move to the top down view okay you guys so in this second part of the video we're gonna actually just kind of walk through the free how to plan and write your series workbook that i have available for newsletter subscribers so make sure you go and sign up for my newsletter to get this for free this is something that i put together to help kind of guide you through the entire planning process for your series and as i was creating this i already saw so many ways that i can make it better so if you start using this yourself and you start to say oh you know what i would love if i had this type of page or this kind of reference or if it asks these kinds of questions please feel free to reach out and email me because i am definitely interested in making this an even better resource so consider this a first draft of the series workbook also i realized as i was putting this on a white surface that you couldn't really see it very well so i just threw down some tissue paper that i've been using in my book signings so just ignore the way that looks it's just a little bit of a backdrop to make it pop a little more okay so the series workbook starts out basically with a message from me and then a questionnaire and the questionnaire is really a way for you to start examining the decisions that you're going to make as you plan now some of this depending on where you are in the planning process is just going to flow right out of you and some of it you might think oh my gosh i don't even know yet but my goal with this first part of the workbook is really to get you thinking along the right direction so brainstorming this is really about digging deep and saying what type of series am i writing what kind of characters am i going to have what type of type of world is this so hopefully these questions will get you on that path so the first question is really just asking you which type of series are you writing a dynamic a standalone or an episodic and if you aren't sure what those terms mean head down to the link below and watch the first video in this series on these three types of series because when do you identify what you're writing that's going to really play into and influence a lot of the decisions that you make from here on out then i want you to take some time to journal and explain the type of series you want or plan to write and why you believe it fits into one of these categories so for example if you think yours is standalone just do a little bit of journaling here about you know i really want to write the type of series that readers can jump in on on book five and still enjoy it and i have this idea for a great detective that they're going to follow all the way through so just something like that where you really explain why this is the type of series you want to write then i want you to on the next page list as many series as you can think of that have similar elements to yours or to what your idea is or write out a bunch of series that inspire you in some way so this doesn't even have to be your exact genre but maybe it has elements that inspire you and you can draw from books film television you can draw from games that you've played or any other type of story or event it could be youtube channels it could be anything but just list as many things that you can think of so you might say like oh i really loved playing resident evil and so i kind of want to write something where there's this developed virus and you've got this one kind of badass character who is gonna you know follow through the whole series of trying to defeat this big organization so you might write down what resident evil was and why it inspires you and why you think it's like yours and just do that for as many things as you can think of then choose one of those things you listed and explain how it's similar to your idea and what elements inspire you the most about it this is really just prompts to get you thinking about what type of series you're writing and why you're adding in the elements that you're adding in then in this next section you're gonna answer the question what genre would you place your series into or what subcategory within that genre if applicable for an example of this would be like okay your primary genre might be horror but the subgenre or subcategory might be a haunted house horror or a monster horror or zombie horror or something like that so it's really important to start to identify what genre you're going to be in now there are some things like romantic suspense that might belong in a romance category as well as a suspense and thriller category and that's fine but you should be able to identify a pro like one single primary genre that you would fit yourself into and remember that like y a is not a genre that's more of a category so what genre within y a are you writing why a paranormal why a contemporary so make sure that you drill down as closely as you can and like i said you don't have to have all of the answers figured out but this should give you a good idea then does this genre and subcategory line up with the examples that you listed over here so if you wrote a bunch of why a contemporary stuff over here but this over here has a bunch of urban fantasy or fantasy maybe ask yourself like if i'm so interested in fantasy why am i writing a contemporary ya so this might just give you a little bit more insight into what you really want to be writing then i have a little bit of a note down here for you that's basically saying that it's a balance while it's always important to follow your heart and write stories that you love it's also worthwhile to think about your intended audience before you start writing so a lot of this that you've done in this early part of the workbook is really identifying reader expectations what genre does this fit into and what type of reader expectations are there within this genre i also want you to be thinking about reader expectations to a degree as you continue to work through the workbook now obviously you want to write the story that you want to write the story that's in your heart so that's why i say it's a balance you can't be writing it solely for a reader or an agent or a publishing house because you want to put a piece of yourself into it and you want to write the things that you're interested in however there are ways that stories are told time and time again and if you're going to step outside of reader expectation you need to be aware of how and why you're doing it a lot of times when people are talking to me about their series or i've been doing coaching with people one of the main things that or mistakes they make i would say when they start to really think and plan their series is they're like i'm going to do something different than what anybody's ever done before the first book is going to be a romance but the second one's going to be a thriller and the third one is going to be y a and it's like okay you know those are all good ideas but when you start thinking about a reader and the way stories are told that is very non-traditional and while non-traditional can work you need to be aware before you do something that is so radical that it might not be something that really fits into the market especially if you're trying to sell this to a traditional publisher you need to understand market trends you need to understand at least the basics of simple things like if you're writing a small town romance how are those stories normally told what tense are they how many points of view are there usually and the more you can fall into what those like reader expectations are for your chosen genre the more successful you're likely to be i always say this with you know take it with a grain of salt because if you have an idea that's radical but that you want to do it i mean think about george rr martin and how much he revolutionized you know fantasy with some of his game of thrones and and the books in that song of ice and fire series you can break the rules but it's always better in my opinion to break the rules because you are doing it on purpose and you know because then you can do it with skill rather than doing it with no skill i don't know i don't want to say it in a mean way but just make sure you understand these things so hopefully these questions get you moving in the right direction and know that the further you deviate from what readers expect what else has been done you know like tell your story the way you want to tell it or tell the the story you want to tell but the more you tell it in a different way or in a way that no one else has done before the more you're taking a risk i think that's the best way i can say it so in the next section you're looking at characters and points of view so you're gonna have many characters in your story but what tense are you writing it and what type of point of view are you writing it so how many point of view characters do you plan to have in your series like how many people are you going to be actually in their head telling from their point of view then will each book feature the same pov character or characters or will each book be different so with a small town romance or a paranormal romance for example you would usually have one couple per book and you would usually in a lot of instances have the hero and the heroine or the two different characters who are going to be falling in love would be the pov characters in young adult fantasy or most urban fantasy you're typically just gonna have that one main character who is the pov character throughout but there of course are exceptions and so you need to understand how you're doing it what the norm is how you're deviating from the norm and start thinking about that so how many pov characters do you have and does each book feature the same pov character or is every book different and how will that pov work then what tense do you plan to write in so the most obvious ones are like third person past tense first person present tense or first person past tense and you need to think about that and understand what those tenses are and then make the choice if you guys want to see a video on how to choose the best tense for your story please comment down below like this video and subscribe and let me know and i can put together a video on tense and pov as well because in my different series i have written in just about everything my fair hope series is a new adult romance that's written in first person present tense my shadow demon saga is written with four povs in first person past tense and then my eternal sorrows series has eight third-person povs and sometimes you might be writing in a more omniscient point of view so just understand the different points of view and how you're going to use them in your story on this final page here of this section i've given you a lot of room to list the main pov characters you know of so far along with anything you already know about them and you can list more than just the pov characters here you can also list side characters if you have room and you want to start working through that so you could list their appearance their backstory their characteristics their personality their family ties how they fit into the story that you know all of those things you could go ahead and start filling out and of course you could print this multiple times if you want to write many different characters the next section we have here is setting and world building so in what time and place does the beginning of your series occur and describe this place in detail so are you working in with a real world setting here where it's just set in contemporary you know italy or contemporary america or a fictional small town but that's basically based on reality or are you in a completely different fantasy world or maybe you're in like an alternate version chicago or maybe you're setting your book in 1865 in england you need to understand the where and the when and then finally like what type of world is this real world are there speculative elements within our world or are you just in a fantasy world and this is where you're going to start figuring all of that out so again is this a real world setting or are there fantasy paranormal or speculative elements explain will your story be primarily set in the same location throughout each book so over here i was asking about the beginning of your series so will your story be set in the same location throughout each book or are there multiple settings list these locations and what you know about them so far now this is not really a place to list okay they're in the book shop and then they're in the house it's more like okay they're in this town or this world or this village and there's going to be a place later to list out the different like shops or locations they go to within that place so this is more like on a bigger scale you could even say this is the country they're in and now i'm going to kind of break it down into cities this would also be a place where you could say that your book might be taking place over multiple decades or in different centuries or however you're going to put that together here is on the next page another little note about something to consider is that i always find it helpful to sketch out a rough map of some of the main locations so you know if you have a main street and you want to kind of sketch out what the different shops are there and that they're going to turn left to get back to the house so that you always are consistent and you have a clear picture in your mind of what the town looks like or what the country and the terrain looks like oh there's you know especially if you're doing a fantasy series there's mountains to the east and there's an ocean to the west and you know you can sketch all of that out i actually also put a resource in the back because there are several places online where you can sketch out a map like online and on a website so that's kind of cool as well i know that there are several authors who friends of mine have actually commissioned maps from artists that they put in their books which i think is super cool and i really want to do that too so in the space below consider listing out the locations like the stores the neighborhoods the terrains that you need to make room for in your map so you can take out a blank sheet of paper and you can begin sketching that out but here you can use this space to actually list the different places that you want to add to your map series arc this is the next section so as you think about your series can you imagine several different story lines or conflicts that your characters will face over multiple books use the space below to brainstorm why you believe you have enough content for a series so you could talk about how you're going to have a different mystery in each book and it's a standalone series or you could say um you know this journey that my character is going to take is going to take them three years so each book is going to be a year of their life so kind of sketch out how that series arc is going to work here in this section in terms of a series arc or tie-in how will your novels be connected will you have that overarching storyline or is there something else that will tie these books together and explain so if you go back to video number two if you haven't watched that yet in this series i talk about the difference between character arcs story arcs and series arc so that's what we're talking about here will your series have an overarching storyline that takes place over the course of the whole series or is there just a more loose tie-in that's like a relationship interconnection or is it going to be basically no overarching series arc and every book could stand alone but it all has the same detective so there's lots of options here and this is just a place for you to start brainstorming that how many books do you think you will need to tell this story or if you're writing a standalone series how many books do you anticipate wanting to write or will you keep it open open-ended so that you could just add more and more books if you can sketch out a rough idea of each conflict your characters will face or each couple if you're writing a romance so again this is not like set in stone and you write this down and now it's permanent this is just a place for you to start brainstorming okay you know i know they start this you know they start here when he ends up at this college and i know we're going to take him through all four years of college and then in the final year of college he's finally going to meet the woman he loves so i'm going to write four books i think and that's how long it's gonna take or okay we've got this big villain that we need to face but it's gonna take my character several books to grow big enough or strong enough or to gather the skills of maturity to defeat this villain so i think it's going to take them six books and you're just kind of guessing at this point but i want you to make an educated guess where you start to think through what are the possible story lines that i might follow here and how long do i think it's going to take or if you're writing romances you might say okay i'm going to have a pack of werewolves how many are going to be in this pack and how many stories do i think i want to tell so you can make those decisions ahead of time so that you can start writing those other characters into the early books so that readers get connected to those characters early on okay so this next half of the planner is really your series planner and this is where you're going to be kind of customizing your own sheets so let me show you how it works so the first part was the series questionnaire and in this section you're going to have a series or series arc planner a books and story arc planner a breadcrumbs or story threads tracker characters and a character arc planner world building worksheet for a contemporary world and a world building worksheet for a speculative or fantasy world again keep in mind that you don't have to have all the answers yet this you can print these out you can pick and scratch all over this you can delete it you can recycle it you can do whatever you want to do but this hopefully will get you thinking in the right direction so we have a series overview page that's pretty self-explanatory you're going to list your genre your subcategory your main pov characters the tents that you're using so these are all decisions you made in the questionnaire and then i want you to list what elements are tying this series together is it all set in the same town is it set with the same family is it the same detective or a villain that is overarching what is the glue that connects this series and makes it a series so then you have a series arc sort of worksheet and i've done three of these so one is for a dynamic series one is for romance series and one is for a mystery series obviously there's only room for two books on each of these so if you think you're going to have six books you'll want to print this out three times and you can really customize it in this way so basically i ask for your book title and your book number on the dynamic series one i'm asking what's the main story question so what's the question that your reader is going to ask by the end of the first act like will harper fit in or will she get sent to juvenile detention or who killed tory fairchild those are the types of main story questions that should be answered by the end of this this one book how does this book connect to the overarching series story line so with a dynamic series you have to have that overarching story line so how does this book fit in with that so you might say something like this is the first book where harper moves to peachville this is the one that sets it up and she discovers that there are witches in this town and that's the only part she knows about the overarching storyline other bread crumbs are threads that are woven into this book so these are just like story threads that your reader's not going to have the complete picture of yet but they're going to get little clues or you're going to be dropping breadcrumbs leading them down a path so this is where you just sort of roughly sketch that out so for example in my book beautiful demons one of the breadcrumbs is that harper discovers a picture of her mother and is she's pretty sure that her mother must have lived in this town so i could put picture of her mother another breadcrumb could be that jackson says that he's bound to an oath older than time so what is this oath what is he talking about um so those types of things you can just add in what types of breadcrumbs or threads you think are going to be woven into this book how does the main character grow in this particular book and how does that relate to the overall series and then the resolution what's the resolution to this first book and what's the lead in to the next book if applicable and you would fill this out of course the lead-in thing so you might say the resolution is she discovers who killed tori and she gets admitted onto the demon's cheerleading squad and the lead-in is that now there are all these mysteries as to what's going to happen once she gets invited into this inner circle of cheerleaders so that's the lead into the next book obviously when you get to the final book of the series there won't be a lead in but i've given you space for two books on each page in the romance series one we have the same type of setup but it's conflict conflict or plot overview who's the couple why do they resist each other what's their conflict between each other what they're each going to overcome so like what's their wound what's their inner struggle and then what's the resolution obviously depending on the type of romance series and if it's darker or you know lighter or whatever it is you might need to alter this a little bit for yourself but hopefully this will give you an idea of how to structure that for the mystery series it's very similar so what's the mystery who's the villain kind of who did who done it what are the clues and twists that you're going to find in this book and then what's the resolution so if you have an overarching series arc in your mystery series so maybe it's like an episodic mystery series you would also in the clues and twists or the resolution you would want to put like how does this book tie into the overarching series as well i have a story arc worksheet for you here which very briefly kind of walks you through just some of the main plot points obviously if you want to go deeper into the plotting of each individual story arc or each individual book you will go and get my how to plot your novel workbook from the same resource library that you get when you sign up for my mailing list and i have this much more detailed in terms of the actual plot so you're going to kind of touch on plot here in the front what's the book title and what's the book number who are the main characters what's the inciting or key event what's the first doorway what's the midpoint what's the black moment and what's the resolution of the story then you're gonna also ask yourself how does this story's arc or action connect to the rest of the series so if it's a romance you might say well this story's action this romance connects to the next book because the hero of this book is the brother of the hero of the next book and you would put that in here explain how your characters grow in this book so how does how what's this character arc of these characters and how does that relate to the next book and then any other notes that you want to put in here so is this going to be something that's fast-paced what what other notes might you want to put in here about how this story connects or what type of cliffhanger or what type of new characters you're going to introduce in this book and so this is per book and what you would want to do is if you have seven books in your series you would want to fill this out seven different times so just print it seven times i have a story threads sheet for you here as well and this is one of the fun things i think about writing a series especially one that's a dynamic series so describe the story thread or related subplots so this could be a subplot this could also just be kind of small breadcrumbs like an undercurrent running in the background that gets stronger with each one it may not be a fully fledged subplot in books one and two but maybe by book three it becomes a subplot and then maybe by book four and five it becomes the main plot and it's just something that's been brewing throughout so describe the story thread or related subplot so what is it so for example i mentioned harper's mother so i'm gonna say story thread is what really happened to harper's mother then in the chart below make notes about how this particular thread is carried through or mentioned in each book so what breadcrumbs are you leaving behind how is it mentioned how does it affect the story so i would write book number and i would write one here and then in this space provided i would write something like the only thing harper ever got from her mother who she never met was this necklace and then i would mention how the necklace plays a role in this book as well as she finds a photograph of her mother and someone mentions this photograph so i would put that here as book one in book two how am i going to advance that part of the story so what little piece of that thread am i gonna weave through book two so the necklace becomes important yet again we find out a little bit more about her mother but we still don't have the answer as to what really happened to her mother so we move to book three and we say okay this is where it really comes to a head because this is where she finds out what really happened to her mother and where her mother is and then in book for this and in book five this so you would just copy all those little threads and like i said you may not have all the answers here but this will give you an opportunity to write out all those different story threads that you want to track and keep track of them so you don't forget when you get to book four that oh yeah i need to weave that in even if it's just a couple of mentions here and there i've given you space to do five books on this sheet so of course if you have more than five books you'll want to print it multiple times and you will also want to print out this story thread sheet for each of your story threads so this is not your main plot this is going to be something that is like woven through until it becomes a bigger part of the story so what happened to harper's mother another one might be jackson can see the future what's going on with jackson's images that he can draw and how does that play into each book so you might have you know a dozen or half a dozen story threads that you're weaving through depending on the complexity of your series so you'll want to print out one of these pages or multiple of these pages depending on how many books and how many story threads you have i also created a character arc sheet for you here where you have similar things to what i put in your character arc on your how to plot a novel but it goes a little different so you've got name a little bit of details and appearance notes then what is your character's wound or ghost what do they believe what's that lie they believe about themselves and we talked about this in the previous video at the beginning of the series they are what they are cynical they believe they're not worth anything they're in trouble with school where are they both emotionally and physically at the beginning of the series by the end of the series not just the end of this book but by the end of the series they have transformed to become what now of course if you're writing standalone romances your character is going to actually transform within that book not the whole series so you want to kind of alter this for a romance that says self-contained romance but when you have a character arc that progresses over the course of multiple books this will help you so at the beginning of the series they're like lost they're they doubt themselves they're not very strong they've just started to realize they have powers but by the end of the series they're going to be super strong they're going to have lots of friends they're going to know their skills they're going to be confident in themselves you know whatever it is what's the transformation then i have a little section here similar to the breadcrumbs where i've given you space for five books and in the chart below i want you to map out a brief explanation of what events in the storyline cause your character to grow and evolve as well as notes on how they've changed so like in book number one the catalyst or event might be that harper goes to the town of peachville and is welcomed on to the cheerleading squad and her character growth here is that she finally believes for the first time in her life that someone cares about her but she also knows that she's getting in with people that might not be good people so she's desperate at the beginning to be loved and to fit in but she's sort of getting in over her head and she realizes this might not be where she really wants to be book two the catalyst or event you know would be something else and what does how does she grow from that so you can explain that and you might have multiple catalysts and points of growth throughout each book but this gives you again space for five books so if you need more you can just print this out multiple times i also have for you here a world building worksheet for a real world setting so what's the main town or setting of this book what type of place is this and so this is of course you could do it per book or you could do it for the whole series but what type of place is this it is small town a big city a factory town give me as many details as you can list any important landmarks terrain special weather they have special events they have anything you can think about this town or this the culture of this place is good to list here then i've given you a lot of space here to also list the shops and buildings in the town and the characters who work there so you might say the pharmacy and here's dr bob works there and this this and this and then you've also got the library and here's who works there and any kind of defining characteristics because especially if you're setting like a real world setting you obviously you don't have to mark any businesses that your characters aren't going into or that aren't going to take place in your story but anything you could see your characters interacting with it's good to have a record of that and we're going to talk about this more in the next video coming up on how to create a series bible but this is a good place to get started with it then you also have a spot here to list any other recurring characters in the town and their traits so this is a great place to list any kind of quirky side characters or characters that might become future heroes and heroines or even the villain of your town so this is this is good so you could actually list a lot of them you're probably going to list a lot of them in relation to the shops and buildings so you can decide if you want to use this for more shops and buildings or if you want to just use this for characters that aren't necessarily tied to a location like a shop but this is more like okay so-and-so's mother shows up in the story many times and that sort of thing so additional notes on this story world again i would also encourage you to sketch out a map of this location then i have a longer sort of journaling brainstorming section here for a fantasy or speculative element world so what's the main setting what type of place is this list any important landmarks all that is the same but what do you know about the people who live in this place make notes on special creatures or races their appearance their history their skills their clothing their language and more so this is where i feel like oh my gosh i could really do a lot more with this but it's hard to get it all into one planner so i've got a note for you on that in the back so make notes on any special magic or technology found in this world be as specific as you can regarding how these things work what are the rules that govern them how do they appear when they're used and what are any consequences to their use like okay you can use this wand in order to cast a spell but every time you cast a spell you get a little bit of a headache or you use up some of your stamina what are the rules and the magic rules now obviously i'm not guiding you too closely here but hopefully this will be a good jumping off point for thinking about the technology or how the magic works in your world notes on elements you will pull from from true history science or technology and how will you stay true to these or how will you alter the truth or weave it into your fantasy so even if you're in a separate world you might be pulling things from the world we know now you might be pulling some of your fantasy the way the castles look or anything like that from medieval england so write out anything you're using you if you're writing an alternate history what pieces of history are you changing and what are you keeping the same this is a good place to brainstorm that and then the final question is what type of conflicts or challenges exist in this world and are these pulled from our modern world how do they how do different creatures races or organizations interact with each other and what rules or laws exist this is really where that government type stuff comes in and this is really just the beginning to world building so over here i have a resource list for you as well okay you guys i know this was a longer video but hopefully this is going to be super helpful for you in planning your own series if you would like to see an example of how i fill out all of these sheets and you would like to see that more in detail please let me know in the comments down below because i can add an extra video on to the end of this how to write and plan your series series showing you a little bit more how this would work in a practical sense as you're actually planning your series you can also get a really good glimpse at how i put all of this information together in a series bible in my next video so make sure that you're subscribed to this channel hit that notification bell so that you'll get notified whenever new videos come up from me and make sure that you're following along and sign up for my newsletter list not only so you can get the how to plan and write your series workbook but tons of other free resources that i share throughout the year i would love to have you as a part of that community also if you are planning to self-publish or you are already self-publishing and just aren't seeing the results you were hoping for i would absolutely love for you to check out my publish and thrive course this is a five-week course that starts on august 10th and it is truly a life-changing course i have poured so much of my own personal knowledge into this class and it's a resource that you'll be able to go back to because i walk you through literally every step of the process from choosing your keywords to exactly walkthroughs of how to upload your books to the different vendors how to register your business name how to keep track of your expenses and your sales numbers through how to market your books and get them in front of readers how to edit them i cover so much ground in this course and you can go back and have lifetime access and watch it over and over again as much as you need to plus you get two hours of live q a time with me every week as well as a private facebook group that you will have lifetime access to so come join our publish and thrive community this class is not about how to take out twenty thousand dollars a month in ads and run a bunch of facebook ads this course is actually about how to create the writing career of your dreams and how to really thrive in this business not just following trends and writing as fast as you can but how to create a career that you will love and thrive in that will fulfill you emotionally and financially for years to come so if that sounds good to you and the content that i share here on heart breathings is meaningful to you then i hope you'll check out that course as well registration will be open until we close the doors on august 10th on our very first start date for module one and this course will not open again until at least february of 2021 so come join us if you've also been interested in joining the hb 90 course but haven't had a chance to do that yet you can also check out my thriving author course bundle where you'll be able to take the five weeks of publish and thrive followed by the full week long hb 90 course at a discount of 99. so you can check out all that information at the links down below thank you so much for being here please make sure to hit the thumbs up and comment on this video that always helps youtube recommend this to more authors like you and thank you so much for being here all right you guys i will see you in my next video which will be coming up this thursday so i will see you then all right bye you

Channel: Heart Breathings

Views: 14,174

Rating: 4.9720607 out of 5

Keywords: planning your book series, writing, writing tips, how to write a book, author, book, novel, authortube, writing advice, books, writer, write, reading, how to write a novel, publishing, read, writing a book, outlining, booktube, reader, ebook, publish, motivation, inspiration, how to outline a book, how to outline, fiction, how to, jenna moreci, how to outline a novel, writing a series, how to write a series, writing tip, writing a book series, plotting, outline, plot, how to outline a book idea

Id: SA2cOAIgoPI

Length: 58min 37sec (3517 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020