by Melissa Tagg, @Melissa_Tagg
I don’t know about you, but I loooooove a good book series that tugs me and doesn’t let go. Where I can pick up each subsequent book in the series and feel both at home in the storyworld but also super excited for a fresh, new story.
Right now I’m right in the middle of Tamara Leigh’s Age of Faith series (OH MY GOODNESS! How am I so late to this awesome bandwagon?!), which is a great example of this—a series where the continuity has me feeling immediately comfortable in each story, but with each book being its own exciting, contained tale.
Here are few tips I’ve picked up along the way—both as a reader and a writer of series:
- Familiar Places
One of the keys to writing a series where readers feel at home is to make that home—whether it’s a small town or a made-up country—memorable right from the start. Give us unique landmarks and sensory details that stick with us…and then return us to those things in subsequent stories.
But variety is still important. How do you keep your storyworld both familiar and fresh at the same time? With each visit, give us new close-ups, new details. For instance, in my made-up small town, Maple Valley, I often return my characters to the same spots in town—a trendy restaurant inside an old bank, a local heritage railroad, a boho coffee shop. But with each book, I throw in a new landmark—or I freshen up an old one.
- Familiar Faces
For a series to feel fully fleshed out, it’s not just your main characters—or cameos from past main characters—who are going to make the world of your series feel like home. It’s other familiar faces, too—side characters that carry over from book to book.
But we don’t want to litter our stories with throwaway characters just for the sake of familiarity. So how do you keep those side characters from feeling like little add-ons or caricatures? Give them a problem! At least one or two of them. No, they don’t necessarily need entire story arcs or subplots. But they’ll feel so much more well-rounded if they exist in your story as more than props.
For instance, I have a character named Megan who shows up in all of my Walker Family books. Readers know her as the grumpy, young owner of a local coffee shop. It would’ve been easy to throw her in from time to time with a little snide remark or catchphrase there. But I wanted her to feel real. So she has her own problems and life experiences that she brings to the page. In the first book, we find out she’s pregnant while young and unwed. In another, she spends a lot of time with the male main character and everyone is convinced she’d in love with him.
Megan became such a part of my series that I started receiving reader letters asking if she’d ever get her own book. (Note: She finally did! Her novella, A Place to Belong, is available now as a standalone novella.)
- New Emotional Spaces
How do you keep a series from feeling like old hat…especially if it takes place in the same place or with the same people? You venture into new emotional territory.
For me, this has been one of my biggest but most personally satisfying challenges of writing a series. As someone who writes small-town contemporary romance, it would be so easy to continually churn out formulaic stories. Same faces. Same places. Just throw in a new romance.
But I want every story to feel fresh…new…unique.
I help my storyworld and my characters feel fresh in each novel by doing my best to explore new emotions. I do this on a macro level by attempting to go new places emotionally with my characters overall. I want each story to feel deeper and richer than the one before.
But I also do this on a micro level, by trying to set different types of emotional scenes in familiar places. Here’s my example:
In all my Maple Valley books, characters eventually end up in a cool restaurant called The Red Door. The Red Door is familiar for my readers. They know it was designed inside a historic bank. They know the long counter in the restaurant was built from cobblestone from Maple Valley’s old streets. They know the owner is Seth Walker.
But I help that place and the characters inside it feel fresh in each story by setting different types of emotional scenes in that restaurant—rather than just, you know, happy-family-eating-a-meal type scenes. ☺ In my first novella set in Maple Valley, when we’re inside The Red Door, we’re experiencing excitement along with Seth as he gets ready to open it…anticipation…a bunch of nervous tension.
But then a book later, in From the Start, in one of our first scenes inside The Red Door, we see a man named Colton experience longing…yearning…and admiration at seeing another person’s hard work pay off. That restaurant to him becomes of symbol of something he wishes he had in his life.
In the story I’m writing right now, there’s a heartbreaking scene that takes place inside The Red Door. We experience anguish…grief…even desperation. And it’s make all the worse because it’s happening inside such a public place.
It’s the same restaurant in each story…but a different type of emotional undercurrent.
Familiar…but fresh. That’s the goal.
All This Time (Walker Family Book 4)
Bear McKinley’s past refuses to let go.
Ten years ago, Bear gave up everything—his freedom and his reputation—for his mess of a family. But after years of distance and too many attempts at starting over, he finally has a new life doing noble work in Brazil . . . until his past catches up to him once again. Suddenly he finds himself back in Maple Valley, charged with the care of his missing brother’s children, convinced he’s out of second chances to make his life count. And yet, with every day that passes, these kids, this quirky town and the woman he never stopped missing help patch the holes in his heart. Maybe this is the fresh start he’s been longing for all along. But as his newfound hope grows, so does the mystery surrounding his brother’s activities—and when the threat reaches into the lives of those he loves, it’s clear he can’t run away this time.
Fear holds Raegan’s future captive.
Raegan Walker is fine. She’s happy working a slew of part-time jobs, still living in her childhood bedroom and rarely venturing from her hometown. At least, that’s what she tells everyone . . . and herself. But she can’t help wondering what might’ve happened if she hadn’t abandoned her art so many years ago—and if Bear McKinley had never left. When Bear returns and she’s commissioned for a painting that just might revive her artistic ambition all in one week, it’s time to finally reach for more than fine. But doing so means facing the fears that have held her back all this time, including admitting the secret she’s kept from Bear and her family. With her dream and her heart on the line, how much will Raegan have to risk to finally chase her happy ending?
Melissa Tagg is the author of the popular Walker Family series, the Where Love Begins series and the Enchanted Christmas Collection. She’s a former reporter, current nonprofit grant writer and total Iowa girl. Her recent releases include a Carol Award Finalist (One Enchanted Noel), an RT Book Reviews TOP PICK (All This Time) and a Publishers Weekly Spring Top Ten Pick (Like Never Before). Melissa has taught at multiple national writing conferences, as well as workshops and women’s retreats. When she’s not writing, she can be found hanging out with the coolest family ever—not that she’s biased—watching old movies, and daydreaming about her next book. Melissa loves connecting with readers at www.melissatagg.com and on Facebook and Instagram.