How Do You Grow Your Series?

On Saturday, I attended my first meeting of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. Donna Andrews was kind enough to drive, and she brought along her neighbor, the superb Barb Goffman, Program Chair for Malice. We picked up Sandra Parshall en route.

I’m thrilled to belong to a chapter with so many multi-published authors. There’s so much to learn from them. For example, chapter member Marcia Talley (the national president of Sisters in Crime) spoke at the meeting about her most recent novel Without a Grave. She decided on the setting in the Bahamas and her protagonist’s temporary job (communicating with the other islanders by radio) as a way to avoid the dreaded “Cabot Cove Syndrome.” That’s author-speak for the unfortunate fact that anyone who lived within spitting distance of Jessica Fletcher always wound up dead!

That made me think about Kiki Lowenstein, and the deaths/crimes in my novels. I’ve spent a good part of today, Sunday, thinking how I can artfully manage to have people die—and to have Kiki care about these deaths—without knocking off everyone in her immediate zip code. In part, we authors have a contract with our readers. You KNOW we’re going to bump people off. It’s our job. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be thoughtful about who, what, when, where and why.

After the meeting, we were getting on the elevator, and Donna said something about a scene and how it occurred to her. That scene set the direction for the book she just turned in. “So that’s how you work?” I asked. “You get flashes of insight?”

“Sometimes.”

I turned to Sandra Parshall and asked her how she works. Sandra says she sits down to write and sees what she gets. Her process is more organic.

All this was wonderful, powerful stuff to consider. After all, Sandra and Donna have both won Agatha Awards. Marcia has been an Agatha Award nominee and received the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Contemporary Mystery.

My editor told me last week that Midnight Ink is interested in more Kiki Lowenstein books, and I’m the type of writer who likes to work ahead. (I’m 47,000 words into Book #4 and it isn’t due until March 2010.) So, while I have a character arc (a trajectory of personal growth) for Kiki, today was a day for thinking ahead to future books.

But this morning, I just couldn’t get my brain to function. Finally, seeing what a lovely fall day it was, I took the dogs for a long walk to the local dog park. After being jumped on by a pit bull, my head cleared. (Maybe a Chihauhau would have had the same effect. Who knows? I guess I owe that pit bull a debt of gratitude.)

How do I plan my books?

I start with what I know. I know where I think each important character is heading in his/her life. I know what special events/places/activities in St. Louis I want to feature. I have a file of interesting “stuff.” I have ideas about why people would kill each other.

And I also consider the timing issue. I want each book to move Kiki and her daughter Anya’s lives along…slowly. I put that all in my mental hopper.

By the time I turned the key in the lock of the front door, I was ready to write.