Saturday, May 22: Mississippi Mud
A SERIES SITUATION
by John M. Floyd
Over the past couple weeks I’ve had something take place, writingwise, that hasn’t happened often. In fact it hasn’t happened to me since maybe 2002.
No, I didn’t write a story without committing a comma error, and no, I didn’t come down with an attack of writer’s block. What did happen was that two of my short stories appeared in back-to-back issues of Woman’s World magazine (the May 17th and May 24th issues). And what’s really odd about it is that this time they’re both “series” stories, but they’re each part of a different series. Not that it matters, but the first story is called “The Quilt Caper,” the second one “The Gospel Truth.”
South of Mayberry
For several years now, I’ve written two sets of small-Southern- town mystery stories, one of them starring self-professed crimefighter Angela Potts and her long-suffering former fifth-grade student Sheriff Charles (Chunky) Jones. The other series features retired schoolteacher Frances Valentine and her daughter Lucy, who also happens to be the county sheriff. Both Angela and Fran annoy the hell out of their sheriffs and manage to publicly correct them on matters of both grammar and police procedure; in Fran’s case, she’s also on the lookout for a suitable future son-in-law for Lucy. The biggest thing they have in common, though, is that both of these crafty but bossy ladies usually figure out how to solve whatever mystery is afoot before their law officers do. (One fan wrote me to say that Angela and Chunky remind her of Bea and Andy Taylor, on TV. I was pleased to hear that, but in truth Angela’s smarter than Aunt Bea was and my sheriff isn’t nearly as smart as Andy was.)
So far, twenty-five of the Angela Potts stories, including “The Gospel Truth,” have appeared in Woman’s World, and one in Amazon Shorts. Thirteen of the Fran and Lucy Valentine stories showed up in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine under the series name “Law and Daughter,” one story was included in the Seven by Seven anthology by Wolfmont Press, one was featured in the now-defunct Mouth Full of Bullets e-zine, and the aforementioned “The Quilt Caper” come out in Woman’s World. The entire Fran and Lucy series is also upcoming in future issues of Mysterical-E, edited and published by my friend Joe DeMarco.
Reservoir puppies?
Most of my mystery stories are standalones, not installments in a series. Why, then, would I create a series in the first place? Well, for one thing, they’re fun to write. Ask JLW or Rob. Another advantage, in my case, is brevity. With short stories — especially the 600- to 700-word mini-mysteries that WW publishes — a writer doesn’t have a lot of room for character development, and when you’re doing a series you already know these people: how they look, how they talk, how they act. And readers know them too. There’s no need for backstory; you can hit the ground running.
Also, there’s a lighthearted mood that plays a big part in these mystery series of mine. It’s a chance to include a lot of humor, not as a byproduct of the storyline but as a main ingredient, and that’s great fun for me as a writer. If I’ve done my job properly, readers expect Angela to order Chunky around and call him by his dreaded nickname and embarrass him in front of the mayor and interfere in just about everything he does, and they expect him to hate that. But they also know that he knows how lucky he is to have her around, although he would never admit it — even to himself.
Keeping up with the Joneses
The disadvantage of series stories? For me, it’s the fact that I have to keep everything straight, like the names of friends, neighbors, stores, restaurants, etc. Especially when I have two currently-running series that are fairly similar in terms of structure, characters, and setting. It’d be pretty easy, in a period of brain-lapse (and I have plenty of those), to put the wrong deputy or the wrong landmark in the wrong story. For that very reason, I keep a long list of characters, major and minor, who have appeared in each series, along with place names. And I do a lot of double-checking.
The other disadvantage is that it would be really easy to get lazy and keep writing similar versions of the same story, time after time. In order to avoid that, I try to open each story differently, vary the crimes and the settings, and even have the “solution” present itself in an unusual way now and then. Once I even had Sheriff Jones solve the case, an outcome which surprised him as much as it surprised Angela.
To those of you who have written series mysteries: Do you find it more fun, or less, than writing standalone stories? More work? Less?
Series possibilities
Who knows, I might one of these days arrange for my two sheriffs, Chunky and Lucy, to meet, maybe at a state law enforcement conference. I don’t think I’ll kindle any kind of romantic interest between them, though. For one thing, Chunky’s already married — I doubt Lucy’s mother, matchmaker though she is, would stand for that. Besides, Lucy Valentine is pretty darn attractive, in an overworked, disheveled kind of way; Chunky Jones is not only lazy, he’s . . . well, he’s chunky.
Who knows, I might even have him go on a diet at some point and lose a hundred pounds or so. It could work; I would just have to figure out a way to adapt.
Maybe Angela could start calling him Skinny instead . . .
I have three published series characters – four if I ever get my second novel finished. I like writing series for all the reasons you give.
Keeping track of details can be a problem – look at Conan Doyle. He couldn’t even remember Watson’s first name!
One of the things that I like about writing series characters is that each story can be used to explore a different aspect of the protagonist. In aggregate, the stories provide the author with plenty of room for complex characterization.
Oh, I find writing a series more fun than standalone stories … a lot more. The characters in The Fifth Precinct have grown so much that there is a deeper, stronger set of interpersonal relationships among them that I don’t seem to get in my standalone stories.
The flip side is that it is indeed a lot more work as well; I ended up needing to compile a three-ring binder filled with pages detailing each character’s description, weapons & personal habits. Trying to keep several interacting characters straight from story to story is not easy — but I still think well worth it to craft a series.
When you have series characters published in different venues do you feel the need to “update” each story so that the readers know what’s gone before or do you just slip into the story?
Sandra, I don’t feel a need to update the reader because the events in the stories in my two series aren’t really dependent on what’s happened before. In other words, each “case” is separate and self-contained, and doesn’t hinge on anything that happened in earlier installments. If the story were ongoing, though, I can see that you might need to refresh the reader’s memory now and then.
For example, I’m still watching the series LOST on ABC, and I swear, if they didn’t have the little lead-in each week that showed what happened last time, I’d be the one who’s lost. Actually, I’m sort of lost anyway.
I guess that’s my problem with writing a series of shorts. While each story stands on its own, I tend to build each new story on the one that came before and I can’t seem to break the habit.
My cardinal rule for all short fiction is that only the exposition necessary to tell the story should be included. Sometimes this does involve a “call back” to a previous story, but it never requires a summary of what happened in that story.
For example, in my most recent Treviscoe story (submitted but not yet sold), I have two heretofore non-recurring characters that appeared in two previous stories. It was enough to refer to the preceding stories in general terms as “the adventure in the Forest of Dean” and “the Tindle affair.” If the reader is interested in how those earlier tales inform the present one, they are free to find them and read them on their own.
I think this is the right way to go for two reasons. First, in a short story, the relationships between characters do not need to be justified, only portrayed, there being nothing more deadly to a short story than extraneous backstory. Secondly, if the reader hasn’t read the previous stories, the last thing I want to do is give them a spoiler—I’d much rather they read the stories on the stories’ own terms.
I’m late to the party, and I’ve never written a short story with a continuing character, but I just wanted to write to tell you, John, in case I haven’t before, how much I love Angela Potts! I especially loved the story with the escaped convicts and the sweater.
Thanks, Barb, for the kind words. Sure glad to hear you like those stories. I never imagined, when I created Angela and their little town, that she’d have quite so many adventures.
As Joseph and JLW and Rob and Sandra said, series writing really is both fun and challenging. Standalone mysteries will probably always be my favorites, but there’s something about series stories and novels that make them irresistible to both writers and readers. Thank goodness.
I enjoyed the WW quilts and gospel stories 🙂
I like recurring characters in shorts stories….and long stories.
There’s enough out there to get into (or out of).
I like them better if they stand alone because if I read a “series” I know what’s going on.
Enjoyed the article.
Thank you, alisa. I too like series stories that can be read as standalones. All the Spenser novels are done that way; Parker often mentions things that happened before, with Susan, Hawk, Quirk, etc., but never assumes the reader will know about those earlier events. I think the novels are more fun if they’re read in order, but it’s not essential.