Outlining a series of novels is not that dissimilar from outlining a single book. Depending on the type of story you want to tell, it's just a matter of breaking down the points of the story into multiple books.
But first, there are two types of series. In the first, the novels each stand alone. There may be small plot pieces that come in and out, but ultimately, each story can be read on its own without sacrificing understanding. Mysteries often follow this format. Some examples are The Hardy Boys and Agatha Christie novels.
In the second, the series is one story broken down into multiple books. The series will have its own beginning, middle, and end. Each book builds off the one before it toward a single climax. Fantasy often falls into this format, with Sarah J. Maas and J.R.R. Tolkien being excellent examples.
For the purposes of this post, we'll be focusing on the second type of series.
So, where do you start? Let's explore how to outline a novel series.
The first thing we want to consider is some housekeeping details.
A series should have enough books to tell the story, but not one more. I think we all know of a series that should have ended before the final books came out, but it kept going beyond its prime. It can be tempting to create whole universes with twenty books and multiple character arcs, but is that necessary?
How many books does your series need to tell the story?
Sometimes that's just one. Sometimes it's four. Sometimes it's ten.
Additionally, each book should build off the previous. That means expanding the world, expanding the cast, and expanding the plot. The first book might feel like it's missing so many details because we won't meet certain characters or even learn of certain storylines until book five. But that's the way it should be. To be introduced to everything up front in a twelve-book series would be overwhelming. It wouldn't leave room for surprises later down the line.
It's also important to note that just because we're telling one story across multiple books, each book in the series should still have its own beginning, middle, and end. They should be finished stories in and of themselves. They simply leave the points of the overarching plot open to the book after.
So, now that we've got those things in mind, let's begin the outline.
There are a couple of options to take here. For myself, I have ideas for series, but I don't outline the series until the first book is written. This helps me to focus on one thing at a time and the story I really want to tell. I make sure to leave room for the world to grow and the characters to develop.
But you can also outline a series before writing a single word. This becomes more important when writing books on contract. Most publishers will expect you to have at least an idea of where the story is going and how long it's going to be.
I recommend the following basic steps for outlining a novel series:
Find the main story idea
Back-track to figure out where the story starts
Decide where you want the story to end (including characters, plot, and world)
Brainstorm what needs to happen in the middle to get to that ending
Pick out the plot points that are broad enough to be their own book
Make a general outline overviewing the main idea for each book, but leave lots of room for each book to have its own story
Write
Let's look at those points a bit closer.
When drafting an outline for a single book, it's important to know where everything starts and where everything ends. In the same way, we want to know this for our series as well. In order to discover our ending, though, we need to know what the series is about.
So let's start with the idea. My guess is something popped into your head and made you think, "I want to write about this!" That's going to be where we start. Once we have the idea for the series, we can brainstorm what happens.
Do you have an idea? Great! Let's write that down somewhere.
From that main idea, let's consider what needs to happen to get there. The primary idea may be at the beginning of the story, or it may be at the end. If it's at the beginning, not much needs to happen to get us there (aside from a whole backstory). If it's at the end, then we can start to work out some key plot points or elements.
Wherever we land, the goal is to discover the beginning or the end. Once we have one, we can find the other.
If we've discovered our beginning, let's consider where the story starts and how we want things to be different by the close. This idea is going to be the rough draft ending. It will give direction enough to plan for the rest of the series. Conversely, if we have an ending, we can work backward to discover where everything started. Basically, we're looking for the two to be complete opposites. If a character starts overly confident in themselves, they will probably end by being humbled and realizing they can't do everything alone. If they end by gaining confidence in themselves, they probably started unsure of their place in the world.
By the end of this step, we have the beginning and end, and we can work out all the little things that happen in between.
This is the time to figure out key plot points for other books. As we brainstorm, anything that stands out as a broad enough idea that it could be its own story is a point for a book idea. That being said, with this series format, we probably don't want to go much beyond ten books at the most. It can be tempting to dive in deep, but we don't want to get in over our heads.
As we talked about earlier, we only want the number of books needed to tell the story.
Once we have the key plot points lined up, we can start to narrow down the ones that are needed, the ones that can be included in a book instead of as its own book, and the ones that we can scrap.
Then we can line the ideas up to see the flow from beginning to end.
While brainstorming, we're probably going to learn of new characters, new settings, and new subplots. I recommend keeping documents on all of these little pieces. Find your series binder where these things can be referenced. That way, when you're writing book five, you'll be able to find the details that can slip from the mind over time.
Once we have these broad strokes, then we can begin to connect the dots. It's important to weave similar themes throughout the series and to hint at your ending right from the start. That means making notes of where certain subplots and characters need to be introduced.
Keep in mind that this should be relatively general. Books have a tendency to grow as we write them, so nailing down all the details of each book at the beginning means we'll probably need to do some reworking later on. Having a general idea of what happens leaves room for things to change as we write instead of having to redo an outline four times.
Once the series is plotted out, then we can outline each individual book as we get to them.
As was mentioned in my last blog post, an outline is simply a map to help direct writing. It keeps us focused on where we're going. In the same way, a series outline keeps us on track when dealing with a plethora of details, worlds, and characters. Especially if we're writing fantasy. The threads of the overarching plot will linger after each individual book, but their own threads will be tied up, so it's important to know when certain plots come to a close and others don't.
This is just one example of how to create a broad series outline. I'm sure there are more detailed options out there. However you work, there's a way to categorize information that will keep your story organized and cohesive.
I'd also recommend exploring some of your favourite book series as case studies. What threads continued through each book? When were certain subplots introduced? What was the main point of each book, and how did it contribute to the overall story? Having other examples under the belt will help to solidify the understanding of series outlines.
Happy writing!
Erin
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