by Carmen Webster Buxton
Many readers love books that occur in a series. For some
genres, it’s almost required. For mystery writers, it makes a lot of sense to
create a detective—either a pro or an amateur—and then write each book about a
different crime, but with the same protagonist. The detective can travel, so
setting can vary, and other characters can be added as needed. With other
genres, it’s not nearly as common to have the same protagonist in every book.
I created my own universe with my ThreeCon books, but those
books are a series only in the sense that the rules of my made-up history of
Earth and the galaxy apply to all the books. Specific galactic-level events are
referenced in several books, but no character appears in more than one book.
Previously,
the only series I had published where the same characters appeared was the two
Haven books, The Sixth Discipline and
No Safe Haven. Both books are set on
the planet Haven, with a nine-year gap between the end of Book 1 and the start
of Book 2; both stories have many of the same characters in common. The reason
there are two Haven books is because when Ran-Del’s story started in my head,
it spread to encompass other story lines. When I was done writing the first
draft, the page count was much too big for one book, so I split the story in
two. I could do that because there was a logical breaking point, with enough
resolution to end that book, but one big outstanding question remaining for Book
2.
But now I’m publishing Book 2 of what will be a 3-book science
fiction romance series, all three books set (mostly) on the planet Wakanreo,
and all three involving the same characters.
As with the Haven books, these books weren’t conceived as a series. It’s
merely that once the characters existed in my head, they kept doing stuff, so I
kept writing it all down. I actually had
a very rough draft of both Alien Vows
(Book 2) and Alien Skies (Book 3)
finished before I published Alien Bonds (Book 1). I had to do a
substantial rewrite of Alien Vows
because of the changes I had made when rewriting the first draft of Alien Bonds. Once Alien Vows is out, I’ll be doing the same kind of rewrite on Alien Skies.
Some romance writers create a series where the books share a
theme, like a common setting, or all being tied to one occupation (such as
Mindy Klasky’s baseball-themed Diamond Brides series). Others might be
family-oriented, with brothers as the protagonists (brotherhood seems to be the
most common family relationship on which to base a romance series; a search on
Amazon for “romance series brothers” yields many surnames including: Hunter,
Bradford, Beckett, McGavin, Cocker, Cynfell, Stone, and Darcy).
Romance is tricky to write with the same characters in a
series, because the plot is focused so much on the development of the
relationship between the two main characters. If the relationship already exists
when the story starts, can you still call it a romance? I think so, but the
relationship still needs to be each story’s focus, and it needs to develop or
change in some way. Certainly, Diana
Gabaldon manages to keep the relationship front and center in her Outlander series, in spite of the ground
(and time) her characters cover.
My readers sometimes express in reviews their hope that the
book they are reviewing will be the first in a series, that those characters’
stories will continue. Usually, I have to tell them no, because if the story is
over in my head, then it’s over. But with the Wakanreo books, I can finally say
yes, the story will continue!
Bio: Carmen
Webster Buxton spent her youth reading every book published by Ursula
LeGuin, Robert Heinlein, and Georgette Heyer. This combination of
far-future worlds, alien cultures, and old-fashioned courting customs
influenced her writing and that shows in most of her books
Links:
