How NOT to Plot a Series

A lot of the advice I read on plotting concerns stand-alone novels. When a novel is a stand-alone, then the advice authors give about creating the highest stakes and the worst setbacks for your main characters makes sense. As a writer, you want to leave it all on the field because you won’t be returning to these characters. But when you write a series, you must plot differently. Below are tips about how not to plot a series, lessons I’ve learned as I’ve worked on my series, Rae Riley Mysteries. Next week, I’ll have advice on how to plot a series.

Writing Without an Ending

If you are writing a series and know exactly how many books you are going to write and how the series will end, good for you! You are a rarity in the writing world. That makes plotting your series easier when you have the whole picture to work from.

But most series don’t develop that way, especially mystery series. A writer may had a great idea for the first novel, and a good grasp of what she wants to write in the second. But she might not have any idea what happens next.

I happen to know how I want to end my series. But I’m not sure how many novels it will take to get there.

Series writers have to be flexible, looking at what works in the novels they publish, and then figuring out to incorporate those aspects in the next book.

It Can’t Always Be Highest Stakes and Worst Obstacles

If you write a series in which your main character (MC) is always fighting for the highest stakes imaginable and the worst events possible keeping happening to him, then you don’t have a series. It’s more like you have a retelling of the Book of Job. Or worse, a soap opera.

I don’t want to read a mystery series in which the MC’s father is murdered in the first book. In the second, she learns he led a double life. In the third, she finds out she has an evil half-sister. In the fourth, her mother led a double life. All these horrible developments do raise the stakes very high for the MC. But they also stretch believability to the breaking point.

Bad things do happen to people. But if I overwhelm my MC with such tragic events, then the fifth, sixth, and seventh novels will have to focus on the therapy she undergoes to handle such trauma. If I want to be realistic at all. It’s much easier to introduce all that heartache in a stand-alone because you don’t have to deal with the aftermath in the next novel.

To make my novels in a series both interesting and realistic, I have to balance the dramatic events that occur in my MC’s life by spreading the drama to other characters, while still giving my MC personal stakes and setbacks.

I’ll cover that in next week’s post about how to plot a series. For more tips on plotting, click here.

Writers, how do you plot a series? Readers, what series has especially good plotting.

May 22, 2025 3

When You Have to Tell, Don’t Show

Yes, you read the title right. And you may look as shocked as the woman in the photo. There are times in a story when you have to tell, don’t show. The reverse of the time-honored technique of “show, don’t tell” can be appropriate in certain situations involving plot.

When You Don’t Want to Repeat Information

If my deputy interviews a suspect and then informs his sheriff, I don’t have to repeat the entire conversation. I can just state the obvious.

The sheriff scooted back in his swivel chair. “Did you finally get a hold of Old Man Thompson?”

I repeated what Mr. Thompson had said about the crime. “But he stumbled around his words. I think he’s hiding something.”

Or I can add a little information, such as:

Mom said, “So what happened in school today?”

Sighing, I took a seat at the kitchen table and told her about the whole miserable mess, only leaving out what Ava said to me.

Repeating information that readers have already read is not helpful, unless you need characters to discuss or think about a specific point.

When You Need to Compress Time

I use this one a lot in my mysteries because the case unfolds over several weeks. If the investigation has stalled, I don’t need to “show” every attempt the cops make at solving the crime. I can compress their investigation into a sentence, like this:

After a week, Sheriff Malinowski was no closer to finding the killer than when he had walked onto the crime scene.

The point of my “tell” is jump ahead in the story’s timeline, and I can do that in one sentence, keeping the story moving.

When You Have to Mention a Plot Point for Realism

I often want to convey to readers that the mystery my main character is confronting is a very hard nut to crack. I can do that with a “tell” like this.

After a week, Sheriff Malinowski was no closer to finding the killer than when he had walked onto the crime scene. No one had come forward with any new information, and researching the victim’s socials had yielded not one lead.

In one sentence, I can convey that there is no new information for readers without creating a lot of pointless dialogue or scenes. It also makes the mystery more realistic to tell that the police are struggling to solve it. Most likely, I will have a “show” scene first, in which a few officers talk about leads they’ve followed and that led them nowhere. Then I follow that with my “tell” sentence, demonstrating that the struggle continues.

I also use “tell” sections for realism concerning my main character’s family life. Rae Riley is part of a large extended family, who are critical to the series, but not all their actions affect the mystery in each book. But I want to give readers a sense of the family dynamic, so I might use a “tell” sentence like this:

After I helped Gram clean up the supper dishes, I helped Micah with his sight words and gave out Spanish vocab to Rusty. When Dad came home, I had to wait until he’d finished his late supper before I could ask him about the case.

The two sentences tell readers something about Rae’s family without getting bogged down in a lot of unnecessary detail.

Keep It Brief

“Tell” sections are always brief in current stories. You can’t get away with more than a paragraph or two. If you find yourself writing a whole page of “tell” information, you should review what you’ve written and see how you can create a “show” scene for most of it.

What are your thoughts on “show, don’t tell” and “tell, don’t show”?

For more tips on plot, click here.

May 15, 2025 1

Plots Points for NaNoWriMo

Need plot points for NaNoWriMo? Now that NaNoWriMo is more than half over, you may be running out of inspiration, especially when it comes to plot. For me, keeping a plot fresh is the hardest part of writing. Below are some suggestions to reignite inspiration as you head toward your goal for NaNoWriMo.

Let settings suggest plots twists.

A chase in a blizzard is different from a chase in torrential downpour. Shadowing someone in New York City is different from shadowing someone at a county fair. When you delve deep into a setting, the unique qualities of it will suggest plot points.

Let characters’ personalities suggest plot twists.

Do you have a character who doesn’t bother to filter her comments? Let that habit kick off a plot twist. An introverted character who keeps a secret could serve a similar purpose.

Fight stereotypes

If you have a cheerleader, make her a nice one. How would that change your plot? Turn your main character’s best friend–the quirky one with all the best lines– into an antagonist. Give your teen MC one parent who actually understands him. Fighting stereotypes can freshen your writing and produce potential plot points.

Have the main character lose something critical or gain something unexpected.

In my novel, A Shadow on the Snow, my teen detective Rae Riley is an amateur photographer. Shortly before her mother died, she gave Rae a camera. The camera is stolen during the story. That theft added so much to the plot.

Still need plot points for NaNoWriMo? Click here for more inspiration.

What do you do when you need fresh ideas for plot?

November 21, 2022 0

Mapping the Middle

Once again this year, I have a new author to introduce to you! I met Alexandra Ely online and I’m so pleased to have her thoughts on mapping the middle. When Alexandra refers to the second act, she’s talking about using the three-act structure to craft a plot. If you’re unfamiliar with this kind of plotting, you can read this post which will give a basic description.

Writing a story is much like mapping a new territory and it’s just as easy to get lost in your own world as it is in the real one. It’s especially easy to get turned around in the middle section of your novel if you’re not prepared. In this post, I’d like to share with you some of the tools I have learned to bring with me when I venture into a new story.

When you reach the beginning of act two, it’s as if you’re standing at a crossroad with multiple options. It can be overwhelming because many of them are plausible paths your characters can take to get them from act one to act three. This was an element of writing that surprised me when I first started.

It was frustrating and slowed me down considerably. I was uncertain which was the “best way”. So many ideas could happen and many of them worked equally well. Often, writing can feel like a waste of time – something we all want to avoid – causing a sense of pressure to get it right the first time. However, I have found this feeling to not be true. The scenes you don’t use are the ones you learn from the most. Not just about the mechanics of writing, but of your characters and story’s world.

Navigating the Middle

Here are two things I have learned that help me navigate and map the vast middle portion.

Brainstorming and outlining: Enjoy the endless possibilities the middle has to offer instead of being overwhelmed. Start by choosing an idea, any one works for brainstorming. See where this path leads. Jot down big picture notes along the way in case you like something specific. Try this with each idea. Soon you will have a map of the many routes your characters could take from act one to act three. The choice then comes down to your favorite. I have found that embracing and exploring the options -instead of being locked into one immediately – makes writing the middle flow smoother.
No scene is a waste of time: Some ideas will lead you to dead ends. I recently wrote such a scene and felt deflated and frustrated afterward. However, I realized that it was as if this idea led me to a vista. Here I could see where I had been and where I wanted to go. It was a vantage point! I was able to identify what didn’t work and why and was able to apply that to the next idea, which ended up working quite well.

Even if an idea leads you down a dead-end path, sometimes we just have to write them for ourselves. This information will not go unused even if it doesn’t make it into the final cut. There is a depth of complexity that aids us as creative writers when we can see any scene from multiple angles. The more you write about your story’s world, whether it be a fantasy realm or not, the stronger your knowledge of it becomes and it will show in the final draft.

While the middle is the largest chunk of your book, I encourage you to tackle all that it has to offer. I hope this helps you to face your current writing struggles and that soon you will find the best-suited path to get you going again. Writing a novel is a journey and adventure like hiking any trail.

For more tips on writing the middle of stories, click here.

*****

Alexandra Ely grew up in the High Desert of California where she played outside, cultivating the imagination she uses for her creative writing to this day. In high school she studied under an old Russian playwright who taught her the delicacies of storytelling. She continued to pursue novel writing in college.

This September Alexandra and her husband will celebrate their ten year wedding anniversary and expect their second baby a few weeks after. Alexandra loves sewing historical fashion, baking sourdough bread, and would like to teach herself calligraphy someday so she can write epic Christmas cards.

Much of her nonfiction writing has been published in both local and national magazines and a prologue to an anthology published internationally. Publication for her fiction work is close at hand. Currently, Alexandra and her writing partner are querying their manuscript and on her own she is editing a second book with intentions to publish as well. You can hear a sample of her novel, The Mermaid Bride, on the Happy London Press podcast and find her personal instagram account @ely_landing and her collaboration account @loftonauthors.

July 28, 2022 1

Keeping the Middle Moving

Every piece of writing advice warns against letting the middle of your story sag. I understand the danger. Deep in the heart of my story, I’m writing page after page of fun character interactions and sparkling dialogue and then it hits me. I’m lost in my story. I don’t know why I’m in this scene or where it’s going. Scenes like that work against the idea of keeping the middle moving.

A variety of approaches can help you structure the middle. Below are three metaphors that might help you keep the middle moving.

The Domino Effect

One metaphor is the domino effect, an idea found in this excellent post by Denise Hunter on the blog for American Christian Fiction Writers. She writes about how conflict should move the story forward.

I think of the domino effect as every action scene should advance the story. If Rae, my main character in A Shadow on the Snow, visits her great-grandfather, it can’t just be for a pleasant conversation. She learns a clue to the mystery she is trying to unravel. That clue leads to another and another. Or the clue may turn out to be a red herring, but it still has to knock over the next domino and keep the story going.

A Line Graph

Another way to visualize the middle is a line graph. I learned this technique from authors James Rubart and Cara Putnam at the ACFW conference in 2017. They used the line graph to demonstrate how the entire plot unfolds but it still works for analyzing the middle. The dips in the line are obstacles the main character encounters while trying to achieve her goal. The peaks are victories. I call it the roller coaster method of plotting.

For a mystery, a line graph could resemble the image below. The obstacles and victories grow more intense as you move toward the climax.

Piloting a Glider

A third way to think of the middle is like the flight of a glider. The glider goes up and down while riding air currents, but it must always move forward. If it stops, it drops. The same is true for the middle of a story.

If I get lost in a scene, I have to discover its purpose. What is the point of this scene beside giving me a lot of enjoyment as I write it? Often I find I can combine several points into one scene giving it multiple purposes.

In the scene with Rae and her great-grandfather, their conversation reveals a clue to who is stalking Rae. It also gives readers another chance to get to know the great-grandfather character and to learn about an uncle who doesn’t like Rae’s father. Giving my scene several purposes keeps the middle moving.

How do you tackle keeping the middle moving? I’d love to learn from you!

This is a repost from 2020.

July 21, 2022 0

Tag: Advice for writing plots