In today’s Journal
* Flash Contest Clarification
* Book Sale
* Ideas
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Just a friendly reminder—
Writing Better Fiction is still on sale for only $9 for all eformats, including printable PDF. On May 1, the price will increase to $14.
You can also still order a binder-ready paper copy from me for $25 (includes shipping). Simply email memailto:harveystanbrough@gmail.com with your request.
Flash Contest Clarification
Please read the Flash Contest! post carefully. Then, if you still have any questions, please email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
The contest is open to all genres across the board.
Any reader of the Journal may enter, despite professional or amateur status and despite whether you’re a contributor or donor to the Journal. I will take none of that into account in the judging.
Series Ideas
Yesterday I got to thinking about ideas. Everyone knows the old question “Where do you get your ideas?”
And everyone has heard of Harlan Ellison’s comeback: “I get all mine from a little shop in Schenectedy” or my own “Where do you NOT get ideas?”
Because story ideas really are everywhere.
And the only difference between a short story idea and a novella or novel idea is that the idea runs longer for the last two.
But yesterday I started thinking about ideas for Series.
You can write and publish short stories in series (for example, K.C. Riggs’ Rainey Wingate series or Dean Wesley Smith’s Bryant Street series).
You can also write and publish novellas and novels in series, like my Stern Talbot PI mystery detective series or my Blackwell Ops series.
But that last one is what started me thinking about the topic of this post.
Usually I write a novel, which leads to another novel and another and a saga (Nick Spalding or Wes Crowley or The Journey Home) or a series (Stern Talbot).
But in the case of the Blackwell Ops series, the idea came to me long before I’d written even the first book.
I liked the phrase Blackwell Ops. It rang of “black ops” but hinted at someone with the last name Blackwell.
As I recall, I occasionally mulled the phrase over for a year or two before I wrote what would become the first novel, titled (now) Blackwell Ops 1: Jack Tilden.
If I remember right, the next thing after the series title that came to me was the boss’ name: TJ Blackwell.
The character appeared one day, fully formed in appearance and voice, but it was some time before he told me the TJ stood for Thomas Jefferson. After that, I started writing the first book.
I’ve had other series titles occur to me and come to nothing. At least yet. But none of them had the same ring to them, and none of them “hung around” like Blackwell Ops did.
Now, in my 90th novel, I’m working on what will also be the 24th book in the series. Pretty cool.
The old wisdom holds true: If you have an idea for a series or story or whatever and it doesn’t hang around, let it go and don’t worry about it. There will be other ideas right around the corner.
But if it does hang around, spend a few minutes exploring it each time it crops up again. And sooner or later, you’ll be moved to write an opening. At that point, get yourself to your writing device and write the opening.
There’s really no telling where it might lead you.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Workshop Sale In light of Quiet the Critical Voice and Writing Better Fiction, if any of you still feel you need these, here’s a sale for you. (grin) Not being snarky, just realistic.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 600
Writing of Blackwell Ops 24: Buck Jackson Returns (tentative title)
Day 1…… 3724 words. To date…… 3724
Day 2…… 3706 words. To date…… 7430
Day 3…… 2110 words. To date…… 9540
Day 4…… 3243 words. To date…… 12783
Day 5…… 1606 words. To date…… 14389
Day 6…… 1306 words. To date…… 15695
Day 7…… 3063 words. To date…… 18758
Day 8…… 3743 words. To date…… 22501
Day 9…… 4375 words. To date…… 26876
Fiction for April…………………….….… 63137
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 288929
Fiction since October 1………………… 591985
Nonfiction for April……………………… 21080
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 149800
2024 consumable words……………… 438729
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 7
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 89
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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Great post what made me think. I have a few worlds in my mind that worlds might be serieses of short stories or novels. It’s just I have more than one story starter or idea in these worlds. Or a character, who has more than one story to tell. However, I don’t force myself to write them all at once. If they want to be written, they will be here later as well.
And of course, there are cases when a series just doesn’t happen. I write one short story in that special world, and I feel it was enough. Or the characters live there don’t want me to tell more stories about them.
“And of course, there are cases when a series just doesn’t happen.” Thanks! Excellent point, and you’re exactly right, Balázs.
I agree with Balasz, sometimes a series just doesn’t happen. I have several fantasy stories which take place in secondary worlds which seem to be pretty packed with information and many more stories, but for whatever reason they don’t come to me. I write one and then that’s it.
Before it used to bother me since I was always taught in fantasy you should always create a series, but now I accept it as is. I see it as getting ‘snap shots’ into their worlds, seeing how they live or what they’re doing, but not seeing the whole picture. Its like real life in a way, we see bits and pieces of peoples’ lives but we rarely ever see the whole, ditto goes for historical people. Sometimes people popped into the historical record, stayed for a bit, and then disappeared forever without a trace.
That sounds exactly right. When I wrote In the Siberian Fields, I actually wrote down ideas from that book for at least seven or other novels in that same world, but none of them came to fruition. Then later I wrote a sequel (The Claim), and that was the end of the story. 🙂