how to write a really long series, part II

Following my earlier post on How To Write A Really Long Series, another reader asked how I thought up the ideas to fill all those books.

It’s simple – you just have to take two principles from real life, and then apply them to your fictional characters.

1.) Nothing Ever Goes According To Plan.

2.) Even When Things Go According To Plan, There Are Always Unintended Consequences.

First, Nothing Ever Goes According To Plan.

This is true on both the micro or the macro level, and you can use this to introduce all kinds of plot complications. An example: earlier this week, I had to drive to a nearby urban area to have some work done on my car. After the appointment, I planned to drive to a restaurant on the other side of the city to have lunch. I knew where the car shop was, and I knew where the restaurant was, but I had no idea how to get from one to the other. Fortunately, I had my phone’s GPS to guide me.

Unfortunately, after the second left turn, the phone announced in a calm and pleasant voice that the GPS signal had been lost. (I said a word in a voice that was neither calm nor pleasant.)

I did eventually figure out how to get to the restaurant, though I wound up seeing way more of the city than I planned!

You can use this principle in fiction. Like, in a fantasy novel, a character might have to travel to the city to give a message to the king, but halfway there he finds that a bridge is out, or that the city is under siege, or that a plague has broken out in the city and it’s closed to visitors. In a detective novel, the detective might go to interview a witness, only to find that the witness has been murdered, or that the witness’s testimony totally destroys the detective’s theories about the crime.

I use this a lot in my own books – basically all the battle scenes in FROSTBORN: EXCALIBUR and SEVENFOLD SWORD: WARLORD are the result of plans breaking down in a major way.

Second, Even When Things Go According To Plan, There Are Always Unintended Consequences.

You can have fun with this one, though it’s annoying in Real Life!

Another minor example from my life. A while back, I stopped for lunch at a sandwich shop, got my sandwich, and left without incident. Mission accomplished, right? Except without my knowledge the back left tire of my car had picked up a nail, so the next time I went out to the car, the tire was as flat as a pane of plate glass. I wanted to reinflate it, except I needed a different attachment for my air compressor, which meant a trip to the hardware store, and then I had to make an appointment to get a new tire and have it installed.

All these Unintended Consequences just because I wanted a sandwich for lunch!

The applications of this principle in fiction should be obvious. Like in our fantasy novel, let’s say the hero goes to hire a ferry because of the damaged bridge. Except at the ferry station, he’s spotted by a spy hired to make sure the king doesn’t receive the message, and the spy goes to arrange an ambush further down the road. Or in the detective story, the detective gains a crucial piece of evidence from the witness. Except the murderer realizes it, and then kills another eyewitness who has the final piece of the puzzle.

I use this one a lot in my books, because it lends a good air of verisimilitude to nearly any genre. (Because in Real Life there are always Unintended Consequences!) In FROSTBORN, the events of FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF and FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER basically happen because Ridmark goes out of his way to cure a friend of wyvern poison. Mara’s and Third’s entire plotline in FROSTBORN is an extended exercise in Unintended Consequences. In GHOST EXILE, Caina spends the first several books terrorizing Istarinmul’s Brotherhood of Slavers, but she doesn’t realize that’s helping push Istarinmul towards civil war. Also in GHOST EXILE, Grand Master Callatas decides to cheat on his bargain with Cassander Nilas of the Umbarian Order, thinking he can get away with it without consequences. (Unsurprising spoiler: he can’t!)

If you’re having trouble plotting out a long series or even a single novel, you could do worse than using the law of unintended consequences and remembering that nothing ever goes according to plan.

-JM