Writing–Creating a Series

At some point after one of the heavy revisions of Cheaters and Chupacabras (long before it was titled, of course, because that didn’t happen until the last minute), I realized that Ivy and her friends could host a series of novellas. I’d even had an idea at the time for what the next novella would be.

But creating a series is new to me. Sure, I’ve read a few, but I’ve never actually given it a try by my own writing hand.

When I was writing The Timeless Man, my idea for Ivy novella number two, I came up against several difficulties in the first draft, one of which was keeping track of the details from the first novella. There needs to be continuity in a series, otherwise people can be moved to lose their interest and/or shit. This is the sort of thing that plagues TV shows. And now I found it plaguing me.

What was Michelle’s married name? What did Candy look like? What was Ivy’s hometown? Did I even name it? Was Art a bachelor or divorced or a widower? Did I say?

Little things like that. While writing The Timeless Man I saw that I need a way to keep track of all of these things. Character names and places and descriptions and relationships –that whole scene. After all, I’ve got ideas for two more novellas after The Timeless Man. I need to get the established stuff straight because I’m only going to be adding to it.

For now everything is scribbles and scratches while I try to figure out the best way to go about organizing these things. I’m going to need to do the first round of revising/rewriting on The Timeless Man soon. I’d like to have my ducks in a row by then.

Or at least all in the same pond where I can see them.