PLOTTING THE NEXT BOOK IN A SERIES

by Lois Winston

I recently began working on the fourth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. When I first began to write, I never thought about writing a series. I wrote stand-alone novels. Once I typed “the end,” that was it for those characters. 

I sold The Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries based on a completed novel, Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, and a partial (three chapters and a synopsis) for the second book in the series. The end of Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series, leads into the premise for the third book, which I turned in the end of the summer and which will be called Revenge of the Crafty Corpse. 

Although a mystery has to be solved at the end of each book in a mystery series, because the books are part of an ongoing series, there needs to be a story arc that encompasses all the books in the series. All personal issues can’t be resolved within the confines of one book. With each book the characters in the world I’ve created continue their journeys, pursuing their goals and dealing with the conflicts that get in the way of achieving those goals.

Goals. Motivation. Conflict. What do the characters want? Why do they want what they want? What’s keeping them from getting what they want? Every major character in a book needs both internal and external goals, motivations, and conflict. In a stand-alone book, these questions are all answered by the end of the book. In an ongoing series, they continue from book to book to book. Give the characters everything they want, and the series ends.

So I’m going to throw obstacles in Anastasia’s way for as long as readers want to follow her journey. She’ll continue to solve a murder by the end of each book, but the financial problems that set the series in motion will continue to dog her. And her family problems? Those of you dealing with your own dysfunctional relatives know that those problems never end.

Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series. The first book, Assault With A Deadly Glue Gun, was a January 2011 release and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Death by Killer Mop Doll was a January release. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

DUMPED ON

I live in New Jersey, and we’re always getting dumped on by one thing or another -- from toxic waste in our streams to dead bodies in our marshlands. For years everyone believed Jimmy Hoffa was buried in cement under the goal posts at Giants Stadium. Yes, the New York Giants (as well as the New York Jets and New York Nets) all play in New Jersey. We’re so dumped on that we don’t even get to claim our own sports teams. I guess they didn’t want to be the butt of jokes, so when they moved across the Hudson, they kept their old names. By the way, Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty, is also in New Jersey. I suspect Lady Liberty didn’t like being known as a Jersey girl. The entire country dumps on us. Thanks in part to late night comics and Hollywood reality TV shows, we’re the nation’s dumping ground.

However, what usually doesn’t get dumped on us too frequently is that cold white stuff from above. Yes, we get snow in New Jersey. Our annual snowfalls total 18”-30” over an entire winter. The statewide average is 24”. Not this year, though. Since the day after Christmas, we’ve been hammered with one storm after another, so many that I’ve lost count, but I think it’s about a dozen at this point. And many of them dumped a year’s worth of snow on us in one storm, the granddaddy of all being a storm that dumped 32” on us.

32”!!! When did New Jersey move to the Midwest? I spoke with someone in Minnesota recently, and we’ve had more snow this summer than they’ve had! Just so you know I’m not exaggerating, check out the two and three story snowmen built by residents a few blocks over from me.

I’m writing this blog post a week ahead of time because my WIP is giving me problems, and it’s better to write something than nothing. I’d dump Anastasia in the middle of a snow storm (What I don’t do to that poor woman!), but this particular book is set in July, and I couldn’t figure out a realistic way to get her down to the southern hemisphere.

Anyway, it’s actually 64 degrees outside today. We’re having our annual January thaw at the end of February, and I’m finally seeing pavement and grass for the first time since December 26 ^th. It won’t last, though. This little tease brought to us by Mother Nature disappears tonight when the temps will once again plummet. Chances are we’ll have another snow storm dumped on us by the time you read this.

Lois Winston is the author of ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN, the first book in her Anastasia Pollack crafting mystery series. Learn more about Anastasia at her blog and about Lois at her website.