Last week, I gave advice on how NOT to plot a series. This week, I have tips about how to plot a series in which you follow the same main character from the first book to the last, using my cozy mysteries series, Rae Riley Mysteries, as a guide.
One piece of advice in the writing world states that your main character (MC) has to change and grow over the course of a story. There are many, many, many stories out there where the MC is static, but a MC who has learned a lesson and changed somehow by the final pages is what publishers and readers want now.
The problems with growth for a series with the same MC are:
- The MC has so much trauma happen to him or her that the plot strains credibility.
- The MC comes across as a dolt because he or she has to learn so much.
Below are my solutions to those two problems.
How to Add Growth and High Stakes to a Series MC
My series kicked off with a short story, “A Rose from the Ashes”. Nineteen-year-old Rae Riley conducts research and devises a scheme to find the person who attacked her mother when she was pregnant with Rae twenty years ago and learn if he’s her father. Now that her mom has died of cancer, she has no family.
- High stakes: This is Rae’s only shot at finding her father. If she finds the attacker, he may want to finish the job he started twenty years ago.
- Growth: Will she find acceptance in her father’s family?
That’s pretty high stakes. So what could be at risk in the next story in the series, A Shadow on the Snow? The plot revolves around Rae’s investigation into who is leaving her increasingly threatening notes. She keeps the problem to herself because she’s getting along with her newly-found family and doesn’t want to make trouble. But her amateur sleuthing may cost her the father she loves.
- High stakes: Rae’s safety, and then Mal’s, is in jeopardy from the stalker.
- Growth: How can Rae learn that her dad and family accept her, no matter what?
For the second novel, A Storm of Doubts, I still focused on Rae’s growing relationship with Mal since it takes place only a few months after Shadow. When the ex-wife of family friend goes missing, Rae tries to piece together what happened to her while wrestling with insinuations from her con man Uncle Troy that she’s calling the wrong Malinowski “Dad.”
- High stakes: Rae’s bond with Mal may be shattered by a family secret. So their lives aren’t in danger but their relationship is.
- Growth: Mal said nothing could change their relationship. Did he mean it?
By the third novel, I couldn’t endanger their relationship again, or else it would appear that Rae and Mal had learned nothing about each other and themselves from the earlier stories. So I’ve shifted my focus to a different relationship that’s critically important to Rae and put that in jeopardy. I also changed who is involved in the high stakes.
I’ve given Rae an extensive family and several friends whose relationships I can threaten. And any relationship provides an opportunity for growth.
I’d like to tell you more, but if you want to be the first to know the scoop on my third novel, sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar. I’ll be sending out my next newsletter with an excerpt from the first chapter on June 6.
What series with the same MC have done a good job of showing growth for that character?
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