March 2021 Meeting Recap: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Writing a Series—Or, Getting Serious About Series

Cynthia Blair, Candace Robb and Cindy Sample

This trio of successful series writers shared their tips and experiences on how to write series and problems you might encounter.

Cynthia Blair, writing as Cynthia Baxter, covered the nuts and bolts of series writing with a series of colorful slides to illustrate her main points. She included how to make the characters’ world interesting with setting, the development of unique minor characters and creating romantic tension.

Candace Robb focused on the importance of including accurate historical details to inspire engaging stories. She discussed recurring characters and how you adapt your writing timeline to the aging process of your characters. And she talked about how some minor characters may disappear for a while and reappear in more prominent roles later in the series.

Cindy Sample also discussed series basics such as setting and had some helpful suggestions of how to use real businesses included in your books for your marketing efforts as well. In addition, she talked about the importance of revising previous books to keep them current, adding that it was important to not give away essential plot details from previous books (like who the killer was!).