When I wrote a lot over the years, I never really thought about my work as a whole. Well with the exception of historical novels on the settling of Oregon. Otherwise, all of the romantic contemporaries, ten now, just seemed like the books that came to me. Some had similar characters. Often I'd find a character in one that said he/she would make a good lead for their own story. But even then they weren't a series to me. Even the fact that seven of them are Oregon based, with off and on characters that know each other, didn't cause me think of them that way.
Although I have bought from a few authors who created series, they weren't the main ones-- and I rarely liked all such authors wrote. An exception was Patricia Veryan. I think I have now every book she wrote (don't like all equally though) and often they were historically one following another with a common theme and problem. They didn't require reading the earlier book, but it was always interesting when I would see a secondary character and know they were likely to end up in a future book of their own-- and they would. I also liked the elements I knew that I could count on to be there-- and they always were.
Today in the Kindle world, I see a lot of the series thinking, and it's almost always a turn off when it comes to my own purchases. I just don't want five books that follow the adventures of five brothers through five romances. Do I feel they will be forced? Is there just not enough variety in five brothers? I don't honestly know, but I have almost never read more than one from such a series.
In putting out my own books, with six out and one more to come soon, I have thought a lot more about whether I have written stories that are too much alike in their form. The question a writer must ask is-- should every book be different or should you offer certain dependable qualities that a reader can count on being there?
If each book is different, then no way would a reader know they'd like a second by the same author. If they are too much alike, doesn't that mean once you've read one or two, why bother with three? Until I saw so many of mine out there, it wasn't an issue that bothered me. Then I began to think about it and wonder what readers wanted.
In mine there are certain similarities. I always like some adventure. I want there to be risk and danger, sometimes a mystery to solve. Somewhere, in all of them, there will be a moment where life is on the line. I like that but is that repetitive?
The love stories vary quite a bit from the kind of people that you can easily imagine getting together to putting together two people who shouldn't fall in love but do. I've written two stories where, although the couple end up together, there is every chance they won't be able to stay together due to big career differences.
Often, I like a villain. Villains are sooooooo much fun to write. The more despicable, the better. I almost never write a villain who is redeemed in the end-- even though I believe humans are a mix of hero and villain. But an all-bad villain is great fun to write. They break all the rules, shock people with their lack of concern for social taboos. Sometimes they end up dead and other times there is the possibility they have survived-- lovely potential for another story.
Writing about a villain who would turn hero might seem fun. Actually Veryan did that very successfully with one of her books. He had been despicable but in a rather understandable way. Then he met a good woman and the whole thing turned around where he became the ultimate, even sacrificial hero.
In my own stories, I have not written about someone who has been a true villain and turns around for a good woman's love. If they have done wrong, I want them to have turned it around before she comes into their lives. I do have one where the young man, as a teen, has been in with a bad group. He turned it around long before the heroine comes into his life. I see it as a weakness in women that often think they can redeem a man who they should know will be bad for their lives. Also if the man treats other people poorly, never think it'll be different with you someday... See... my books tend to end up with some messages in them about what I consider to be healthy love. Redeeming a real villain works out best in fiction.
Another of the things that pretty much is always the case in my books. My heroines are not victims. They might get in bad situations, but they do not constantly need a hero to bail them out. I cannot stand to read that kind of book either. If, by mistake, I buy a book where a heroine constantly goofs up needing a hero to fix things, I quit reading as soon as I see it happening. No way would I write such a story where I'd have to live with that lightweight for months as I wrote her story.
But now I am asking myself if I have too many similarities in my stories. Oh, they are all different plots, and problems, but the basic form of the story is probably quite similar. That is less true in my historically based manuscripts which tend to follow a line of history as well as the love story; so they are different. But they are also not out on Kindle, and I have not yet decided if they ever will be. That's another thing I have to decide.
When you write a lot and see your stories all out there, together, in a line, and you imagine a reader looking down through them, the question a lot of writers have probably asked themselves and I am now-- Is it good that they have that basic form in common or is that a weakness in selling a lot of books?
Picture at top is a digital painting based on an Arizona stream which I had thought about using for a book cover but never have.
