I love to read books that are part of a series. In fact some of my favorite books are those that are part of a series. A series lets you not only fall in love with the characters in one book, but to see what happens to them well after their book ends. At the same time you get to know secondary characters before they go on to get their own stories.
Since these are my favorite stories to read, it made perfect sense to me that I should write a series or two of my own. At the time it sounded simple enough, create a family or two and tell each individuals' story. How hard could that be? Harder than I imagined.
When I started book 1 The Teacher's Billionaire in my series I made the mistake of not keeping excellent notes. With each book after that I tried to keep better notes relating to age, and what not but my note taking skills still weren't where they should be. Now, as I complete Redeeming The Billionaire, fifth book in one series, and prepare to begin the second in my other series, I have decided it is time to get series about keeping track of important details about each character I include in a story regardless of how important they may or may not be.
In an effort to tackle my problem, I first created a Sherbrooke Family tree for my series The Sherbrookes of Newport and placed it over my desk. It contains three generations of Sherbrookes. Will everyone on that tree become a character in a book? I don't know but at least I know how each character is related. Next, I created a chart listing the main characters in each book, their ages at the time of the book and how many years have passed in their book world. Over the next week or so I hope to make an actual map for North Salem, the fictitious town where my second series Love On The North Shore takes place. I am hoping that these steps will help make my writing process easier. I would love to know how other successful series writers keep all their facts straight.
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