The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 30 – How to Plot a Fantasy Book Series

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Do you love tightly plotted novels where little clues become huge problems in the next book? I do! But how do you plot them as an author – without spending months outlining or writing everything first?

Well, I'm so glad you asked! Because I know a simple trick that will lay the foundation so you can write a series with confidence!

Check out the Am Writing Fantasy website, especially the article on writing a story synopsis HERE.

Pick up a download of a Traditional Story Arc HERE or a Series Arc HERE. Watch the video on Youtube HERE.

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Autumn (0s):
Don't you love a tight series that is tied so well together that in a tiny problem in book one because the tension fuel plot a book three is what I crave as a reader, but as a writer, how the heck do you create that without writing all the books first and possibly driving yourself mad on the edits and rewrites? What did we need? If there is a simple trick so you could get writing and publishing with confidence, well there is an employee to share it with you.

Autumn (33s):
If you're a fantasy author then you've come to the right place. My name is Autumn and together with Jesper we've published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you with writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world. A quick note to those listening in on the podcast. There are a couple of graphics that I'll link to in the show notes at the end of the podcast, but for the full effect I recommend watching the video. There are a couple of things. I look forward books as a reader and a big one is a tightly woven series where the tension keeps building and it's all tied together with not only an overall huge goal, one that you don't usually realize it's all at least book too, but that one where minor problems pushed aside for immediate threats bubble up to be huge plot changing moments.

Autumn (1m 25s):
Those books will keep me up all night and make me forget to eat, but as an author, especially a new one, creating that can seem like a nightmare in plotting. Creating a single book is difficult enough, but a series that flows like it was planned that way far before a single word was written. It's tough, especially if you don't want to write all three, four, seven books before publishing even one or the novella or short story.

Autumn (1m 55s):
Having this sort of big picture info is so important and to do it, we are talking a hundred pages of intricate back checking, right? Gosh, no, you should know me better than that. I like efficiency. Getting the biggest reward for the least amount of work is sort of my thing. I want to spend all of my effort on the actual writing, not the before I ever get to writing part. We are going to do this super easy, simple and build off a few of the previous things we've covered on these videos.

Autumn (2m 31s):
Okay. First, let's take a look at the plot of a traditional story arc. Again, we first looked at this in the video creating a novel outline. Remember, this is where a fairly flat intro rises during the inciting incident to escalate through some hurdles and laws to the high point of the climax before dropping to a less tense resolution and the episode on creating a quick novel outline. I talked about using the seven of story structure and using it to match the graph was an inciting incident, hurdles and laws when the reaction phase, the dark Knight of the soul and planning phase in the middle and then the climax on wrap up knowing that you might think the plot of a trilogy, it looks something like this.

Autumn (3m 18s):
This graph shows three books, one after the other with the exact same tension shape as a single book from a flood intro to a final wrap up and all of them equal if peak tension in the background of this trilogy, some sort of series arc ties everything together. It makes sense, right? But it is wrong.

Old McGrumpy (3m 40s):
Why? It looks like three books with some overarching theme to tie them together. It is very orderly.

Autumn (3m 47s):
You would think so old and grumpy as an AI. You probably like a very clean and organized graph that resembles one input after the other exact same inputs. But that doesn't make an exciting series

Old McGrumpy (4m 0s):
but you just don't like logic. If this isn't an image of a series, what is it?

Autumn (4m 6s):
Well, it represents a poorly planned series or one that is more like a TV show where something that happened in the previous episode doesn't really impact today's show but somehow plays into the overall season. It works, but in some tight plotting, I like type plotting. We are here to talk about tight plotting.

Old McGrumpy (4m 27s):
Fine. What is a trilogy supposed to look like to a worthless human?

Autumn (4m 32s):
Ha glad you asked what a trilogy you really should look like. Is this

Old McGrumpy (4m 39s):
ag?

Autumn (4m 39s):
Oh wait, it isn't that bad. Oh, well, good to know that a really tactical plotting can make AI runaway. To make sense of this, we just need to look at the parts here. Book one contains the beginning of a subplot that becomes the plot of book to which contains a subplot that becomes the plot of book three and behind it all as a series plot that weaves everything together. Plus book one is exciting, but the tension really increases with book to well.

Autumn (5m 10s):
Book three is even bigger and a complete page Turner, not to mention the inciting incidents for the serious plot happens at the climax of book one. In fact, you might say the climax of book one kicks off that realization. There's a bigger problem. The climax of book two is actually a hurdle in the series plot and the climax of book three is also the climax of the series plot. It all makes so much sense when you craft it, but I promise you as soon as you sit down to plot out your series, it will all fall apart.

Autumn (5m 46s):
Like I was speaking a foreign language that you are momentarily fluent in and now eludes you. Because that has happened to me. Writing is a mess. Nothing is ever as simply as I just outlined, but there are steps to make all this happen. I wouldn't tell you it was possible and then not get you to the end and the way to do this is with that two sentence synopsis, novel theme. These are super simple and follow the lines of just needing five elements like a one, a hero who finds himself stuck in to a situation from what you went to S to free himself by achieving a three goal.

Autumn (6m 25s):
However, there is a four villain who wants to stop him from this and if he is successful will cause the hero to experience a five disaster. To take a deeper look at that and some explanation, I'll link to a blog post at the amwritingfantasy website. If you haven't been over there, you should check it out. There are a lot of great resources from workbooks to one over 150 posts on writing and marketing. For writing a trilogy, you need to create four of these two sentence synopsis.

Autumn (6m 57s):
They would include one the synopsis of book one two the synopsis of book two three this analysis of book three and four the synopsis of the empire series, the plot of book, one will be mostly unrelated to the series. However, the climax of book one will reveal a larger problem which has been slowly building through the book as a subplot. This reveal is the series theme. The end of book one also sets up plot a book too, which is usually overcoming a big hurdle to six need it to succeed in solving the problem with the series plot book three is plot will be closely tied with the series.

Autumn (7m 39s):
At that point, the characters are the thick of trying to solve the series plot what of the climax of book three at the same time by looking at the themes and the fellowshipping upping the seven steps of story structure for each book and the series, you could start to pull out the subplots that needed to grow to become the plot of the following. Book knowing the theme and the plot of the series helps you see how book three you should develop. This will tie everything together so the books feel tightly woven even before you write them.

Autumn (8m 11s):
And that's because well they are. It does take some time and thought, well you have all the tools to do this and once you put it together, you know how all the books we'll weave together. I can start to see a bit of an overall tapestry. It is really exciting. And now you aren't writing in the dark either. You have solid direction for an entire series arc so get writing and let me know in the comments if you're applauding a series and a bit of what it is all about. I love to hear, don't forget to check out the episode on creating a quick outline for your novel.

Autumn (8m 47s):
It will help with solidifying this one. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.