The book I’m working on is the second of a trilogy. Back when I became seriously engrossed in science fiction—the second time, not the first; the first was at age 10 or 11, when everyone is supposed to fall headfirst into this wonderful amalgam of weirdness— in the late 70s, early 80s, there was a running joke in the field that for a bunch of science geeks, SF writers couldn’t count because we didn’t seem to know that there were only three books in a trilogy. I think it was Piers Anthony who began getting joked about this way.
I never intended to write series. I have a problem with most series work, even reading it. I get bored with the same characters in x number of successive novels. I have attempted from time to time to write a number of short stories with the same characters, but it has never gotten past two stories. And when I originally constructed the Secantis Sequence it was with the idea that the books shared a common background but no common characters.
(It turned out that I did have one character that I intended to carry over, Sean Merrick. There are in boxes three complete Sean Benjamin Merrick novels which will likely never see the light of day. In a very minor way, minor, mind you, he is my Lazarus Long character.)
As time has advanced and I find myself trying to figure out how to write something that will both sell and stay in print, I am coming inexorably to the point of committing serious series. Much as I like and usually prefer to have novels as stand-alones, especially as I get older, it is equally clear to me that Readers like consistency. It’s a relationship thing. You meet someone, you have dinner, take in a show, the conversation is really good, and later…well, readers have grown weary of one-book-stands, apparently, and like to settle down. At least it’s not a monogamous desire.
So I have devised works of late that will go to sequels and/or series.
With the same characters.
Orleans should it ever be published will introduce everyone to Claire St. Griffe, who is what I have termed a voyant—one who can shift her consciousness into another’s mind. I have a nifty skiffy rationale for this, it is not fantasy, but it is just barely SF. This is an alternate history as well and I finished it a few years ago. It has been seeking a publisher since.
Having gone recently (as reported here) to a conference concerning a central character to this trilogy, I decided upon the eve of the day job’s end to start working on book two. Oculus is well under way. The third volume will be called Orient and the working title for the whole project is The Oxun Trilogy. Have fun looking that one up and wondering how it will tie in. If I handle it right, it’ll be cool.
Now, I have it in mind to establish a premise wherein I could conceivably write more Claire St. Griffe novels if the need arises—like a publisher waving vast sums of money under my nose—at which point the newer books will comprise a different series. Same character, different background.
Meantime, there is the historical I finished last year, The Spanish Bride. Now I fully intend that this be a real honest-to-god series, with several novels, and I have the hubris to believe I could pull this off. Main character is a man named Ulysses Granger who is a (secret) officer in the Continental Army. After the Revolution is concluded, he moves to St. Louis to find out who murdered his best friend there three years earlier.
This book is also finished and looking for a publisher. Should it sell, I have the outlines for the next two. I could do ten novels in this series, there is certainly enough historical material at hand to do twenty.
I have just put a proposal together for another trilogy. I don’t want to talk about that just now, though, so forgive me.
The Secantis Sequence? Sure, I have outlines for two more. I always did intend doing a direct sequel to Peace & Memory, a diptych so to speak.
What would all this do to the stand-alones I have in my files waiting to be written?
Don’t know. It’s a problem I’d like to have just now, being committed to two trilogies and a possible long term series. I have brief synopses for at least three stand-alone novels.
Right now, I have to admit, I could happily jettison any one or four of these plans for the one or two that get picked up and work.
As I said, I’m well into Oculus and having a ball with it. I’m writing this just now as sort of a record of my state of mind. Right now, career-wise, I am not where I want to be, but I’m doing the part I like to do. I have a library full of books to read and the one I’m writing is about to require that I read at least two of them I haven’t yet touched for background. Paris in the 1920s. Hmmm, he hmms as he rubs his hands together. Crazy stuff. It is, you know, they were crazy people back then.
So I’m blathering. It’s my blog, I get to blather.
Tomorrow I finish chapter seven. Then, the world! Bwahahaha!
(Clears throat to indicate abrupt self-consciousness.)
Anyway, have a good one, whatever it is. More later.