Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Things I wish I knew when I signed a three-book deal

When you sign a three-book deal, it means:

1. You have to actually write three books.
I got that, of course. What I didn’t get is, when you (read: I) don’t write with an outline, it’s trickier than you might think.

2. Those three books have to actually go together.
Again, obvious. I love my characters, and it’s great that I get to keep writing about them, but that means I don’t get to keep my happy ending from book one—because bliss isn’t that fun to read about. Also, I think it’s important that the entire trilogy is cohesive. I talked about the concept of cohesiveness when I posted on critiquing, but essentially, I just mean that the concepts, characters, conditions and conflict should flow smoothly throughout the series. This means you should foreshadow key events where you can even if they don’t happen until much deeper into the trilogy, and past key events should factor into everything that happens from there on out. But, again, when you don’t write with an outline, and have no idea where the story is going, this is a bit of a trick.

3. Book three has to wrap up all those loose ends.
All those cool sub-plots and character twists? This is where they come home to roost. The end of book three needs to wrap up 1200ish pages of character quirks, foreshadowing and plot twists into a tidy little package tied with ribbon. Nathan Bransford did an interesting post a while back on what happens when you leave all that mystery dangling. This is the real trick, and the reason I wish I’d had some clue how this trilogy was going to end before I started book one.

With Personal Demons and Original Sin I could leave stuff hanging. As a matter of fact, as an author, you kind of want to leave some mystery in the first books of a series. Both of those books took under two months to write and another month to revise. The Novel Formerly Known as Hellbent has been started, restarted, burned and stomped on then restarted again, and again…and again, over the course of about a year. In December, inspiration (borne of necessity since my deadline was approaching) hit and I pulled it together. After all the angst, I was euphoric. It was The Best Novel Ever! Except, that’s not what my agent and crit partner thought. So I’m revising (More on revisions later this week.) and it’s sucking the life out of me. (Which is why I haven't been here much over the last few weeks. Sorry!) I struggled so hard with point #3 above--fitting all the pieces together just so--that it feels like my whole novel is a house of cards. If I mess with any one part, the whole thing is going to topple.

So…I’m indescribably grateful to my seriously cool editor and everyone at Tor for having enough faith in me to sign me to a three-book deal. But, I seriously need to learn to outline if I’m ever going to do this again.

14 comments:

  1. I can't imagine how to weave a story beyond one book. Here's to a fabulous book three!

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  2. I know if anyone can do it, you can, Lisa! I'm a big plotter, too, and I make lots of lists, but I bet your betas will be the best tool to find those loose ends.

    Good luck!

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  3. The things I never thought about when writing a trilogy! Good to see this post and it really makes me think that maybe I should figure out where my manuscript is going...or just kill everyone off. The end.

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  4. You know, I aspire to be a published author but I can barely keep on track to form one story. I couldn't imagine having to actually try to plan for three. Like you, when I do write, I can't plan it out. It has to just come to me. So to "plan" for three would probably be one fabulous (read: insane) disaster.

    Your counter on the side just totally depressed me, lol, but looking forward to Original Sin so I can look forward to seeing how you conclude the story!

    Love this post

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  5. Girl tell me about it! I'm writing sequel's to 2 of my series and they were much harder to write than the first one of those series. I had to decide what kind of sequel it was going to be - a continuation of book one or a stand-alone with tie backs to book one. On both I chose to do a continuation of book one. The next hardest part is finding betas for it and reviewers.

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  6. Thanks for all your encouraging comments. I WILL pull it together! =)

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  7. Great post! And actually, a pretty fun problem to have. *grins* :-)

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  8. I wrote a fantasy romance trilogy. Writing books 1 and 2 were so easy! The third book took forever. Typing up all loose ends and all that... not fun. Good luck!

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  9. I love to read trilogies, but as a writer, I can't imagine tackling such a project. I'm doing a series of stand-alones that all tie back to the original, and that's complicated enough.

    Hopefully, one day, I'll have the 'problem' of a three book deal. :)

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  10. I dont understand what you mean but i belong to those fans that it wants a book 3th,4th,5th and so.. Thats the only problem!But i will follow whereever you decide and want ofcource

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  11. I mean i do understand sorry for the double post :(

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  12. Sorry this has been so hard for you, Lisa. I know it will all work out great in the end.

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  13. I have complete and utter faith in you Lisa! I know you work so hard (an understatement) and if anyone can do it, YOU CAN!

    Interesting post and one that gave me food for thought so thanks :)

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  14. This was a great post! I just signed a three-book deal too, and am quickly turning from a Pantser into a Plotter. Who knew outlining was actually so important? I can't wait to see where you go with the series and how it all ends up. Personal Demons was in my top 5 favorites of 2010. Good luck!

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