Write It Right: Tips for Authors

By Mary Deal

Written and compiled by award-winning novelist Mary Deal, Write it Right - Tips for Authors is a major source of information for breathing life into your prose. Learn how to polish your writing with tips and examples, and make your prose leap off the page.

Writing your opus, you may have encountered myriad questions about imperfect areas that you stumble across in the composition. The thoroughly explained tips offered in Write it Right - Tips for Authors clarify these worrisome issues, instead of simply taking a chance they’ll be acceptable.

These thorough and often humorous tips were written in response to author queries for articles that explain various problematic aspects, including:

- Grammar and punctuation

- Narration

- Character development and dialogue

- Preparing your manuscript for submission

- Your public image

If your writing hasn't been perfectly smooth, you’ll find answers to your questions in Write it Right - Tips for Authors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Dec 9, 2021
• ISBN: 4824105307

Book preview

Write It Right – Tips for Authors

WRITE IT RIGHT – TIPS FOR AUTHORS

The Big Book

MARY DEAL

Contents

Other Titles by Mary Deal

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About this Book

Begin at the Beginning

1. The First Time Writer

2. Basic Reference Library

3. A File of Notes

4. 9 Tips for Beginners

5. 3 Reasons for Writing Sequels

6. The Muse

7. Subconscious Creativity

8. Sleep and Creativity

9. Saturate Yourself

10. Slowing Yourself Down

11. Writer’s Block

12. Writing the Biorhythm Waves

13. Writing Prompts

14. Writing Rules

15. Plagiarism On and Offline

16. Any Way You Distort It

17. Writing in the Dark

Titles

18. Creating Your Story Title

19. The Effect of Titles

20. Choosing a Subtitle

21. More About Choosing a Subtitle

Beginnings and Endings

22. Prologue, Denouement and Epilogue

23. Denouements and Epilogues

The First Drafts

24. Outlining a Story

25. Starting Your Story

26. Building a Story

27. Sentence Structure

28. Plot Driven or Character Driven

29. Plot Elements

30. What Motivates Your Characters?

31. Wasting Stories

32. Include It or Forget It

33. Voice in Writing

34. Personality as Voice

35. Talk Uppity

36. Talk the Talk

The Parts

37. Parts of a Story

38. Beginnings

39. Middles

40. Endings

41. Foreshadowing

42. Magnetic Beginnings

43. Down to the Needle

44. The End of Sagging Middles

45. Elusive Endings

46. Choosing a Point of View

47. Know Your Genre

48. Naming Characters

49. Breaking Stereotypes

50. Character Sketches

51. Faces, Quirks and Personality

52. Reader Empathy

The Nuts and Bolts

53. Action Words

54. Dead Words

55. Common Words to Forget

56. Clichés and Jargon

57. Drop the Words

58. Repetition Offends Readers

59. Fewer or Less

60. Words and Sounds

61. Contributor Article

The Nuts and Bolts in Sync

62. Unseen Background Details

63. Forensic Evidence in Plots

64. Staying in POV

65. Scene Changes

66. How to Doom A Writing Career

67. Dig Deep for Plot Remedies

68. When I’m Stuck

More Grammar Tips

69. The Rules of Grammar

70. Tricky Sentence Structure

71. Contractions Anyone?

72. The Letter S

73. Those S and ES Endings

74. Inside the End Quotes

Your Characters

75. Character Titles

76. Be Astute About Character Names

77. The Importance of Names

78. Kinship Names

79. Importance of Characters

80. Your Characters Change Clothes

81. Character Arc

82. Emotional Release Through Character Conflicts

Play-Act the Scripts

83. Author Intrusion

84. Become an Actor

85. Becoming Your Characters

86. Character Mannerisms

87. Character Take-over

Dialogue

88. Self-Absorbed Characters

89. Let the Dialogue Speak

90. Sex…with Finesse

91. Your Characters Speak Your Language

92. Writing in First Person

93. Story

Editing, Re-editing and Re-writing

94. When Not to Edit

95. When Editing Backfires

96. River Boners

97. More Words to Lose

98. Be Compulsive

99. Hidden Grammar Flaws

100. Paragraph Redundancy

101. Exaggeration with Redundancy

102. Fine Detail Behind the Scenes

103. Habitual Mistakes

104. Never an End

105. Let Nothing Slip By

106. Two Little Words

107. Let it Sit

108. Get Away From Your Story

109. Contributor Article

Short Stories

110. Composing the Short Story

111. Short Stories Can Help Write Novels

112. Taking Liberties

113. From Novella to Novel

114. Story

115. Story Rejection

116. The Pushcart Prize

117. Short Story Sites

Nonfiction

118. Contributor Article

119. A False Sense of Value

120. Article Writing Tips

121. Writing True Crime

122. Tips to Writing a Tribute

123. Composing Funeral Eulogies

124. Be Strong of Heart

Editors

125. Avoiding Rejection

126. Follow Those Guidelines

127. Facing Rejection

128. Story

Literary Agents

129. Preparing your Manuscript for an Agent

130. Submitting to an Agent

131. Query Letter Dos and Don’ts

132. Query and Cover Letter Format

Traditional Publishing Houses

133. The Big Six

Self-Publishing

134. About Copyrights

135. Afraid to Publish

136. Choosing a Publisher

137. An Advantage of Self-Publishing

138. Your Book Cover

139. Designing Book Covers

140. Back Cover, Spine and Jacket

141. How to Format a Book

142. Cleaning Your Manuscript

143. Print-on-Demand (POD) and Vanity Presses

144. Contributor Article

Promotion

145. Writing a Biography in Long Form

146. Writing a Biography in Shorter Formats

147. Creating Your Own Publicity

148. The Media Kit

149. Writing a Story Synopsis

150. The Elevator Pitch or Logline

151. What’s Your Book About?

152. Help with Loglines

153. About Video Trailers

154. 11 Must-Haves for Making Video Trailers

155. 10 Tips for Book Signings and Manners

156. When a Book Signing Fails

157. Book Giveaways

Your Public Image

158. It’s My Time

159. Confidence

160. Finding Confidence

161. You – The Book Promoter

162. 10 Book Signing Essentials

163. From Audacity to Self-Confidence

164. A Writer’s Self-Esteem

165. The Psychology of Peer Envy

166. Your Head Shot

167. Get Involved

Your Online Presence

168. Maintaining a Blog

169. Maintaining a Website

170. Lurking

171. 11 Rules of Online Social Media

Be Gracious!

172. How to Overcome Bad Reviews

173. Interpreting Amazon Rankings

174. The Future of Publishing

175. Your Public Persona

176. Contributor Article

The Media

177. 4 Tips to Dress for Success

178. The Radio Interview

179. Media Exposure

180. New Writers Can Start Locally

Contributor Biographies

Appendix

To My Readers:

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2013 Mary Deal

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Other Titles by Mary Deal

Fiction

The Ka

River Bones – Sara Mason Mysteries Book 1

The Howling Cliffs – Sara Mason Mysteries Book 2

Down to the Needle

Legacy of the Tropics

Sea Cliff

Collections

Off Center in the Attic

---

Nonfiction

Hypno-Scripts – Life-Changing Techniques Using

Self-Hypnosis and Meditation

For Miika Hannila and the entire team at Next Chapter, for accepting my books for publication.

Also, for all the writers who struggle to make their prose the best it can be.

Foreword

"Mary Deal has been a regular contributor to my website, www.mikeangley.com, for a very long time. My readers have warmly embraced her insightful tips about the writing craft; people keep coming back for more. Her tips are a wonderful addition to my thriller genre focused website, but her advice and counsel are applicable across the spectrum of writing…all genres and sub-genres.

---

"Mary knows her stuff, and I personally have learned so much from her. (Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?) When she told me she was compiling her articles for a book, I knew she had a winning idea. While her advice for authors appears in scattered posts on my blog, having them all available in one place makes for a wonderful reference resource.

---

What I enjoy the most about Mary’s articles is how straightforward she is in presenting information. She doesn’t mince words (a tip in and of itself), rather, she delivers short-cropped, to-the-point guidance. And very often she does it with a great sense of humor! There’s something for everyone: cliché avoidance, point of view adherence, repetition rejection…you name it. Each article is easy to read, register, remember, and render into practice. Enjoy this book. Learn from it. Apply the lessons herein. Mary will make you a better writer, and put a smile on your face along the way.

---

~ Mike Angley

Special Agent (USAF, ret), Colonel (USAF, ret).

Award-winning Author of the Child Finder Trilogy

Colorado Springs, CO

Preface

The wizened writer understands that if prose is not smooth and flowing, it puts the burden of interpretation on the reader, another impediment that stands in the way of full enjoyment of a story. Numerous requests for clarification of areas of writing that authors stumble across have found their way into my Inbox. Each time I was asked a question, if I did not know the answer, I researched. In that way I was able to write numerous articles, many of which are included in this reference book.

Various publications have printed many of these articles. Though a few may seem similar, many were written or rewritten for different publications, websites, blogs and purposes, and contain their own gems of wisdom. As presented here, they are a combined collection of the articles found in the eBooks, Write It Right – Tips for Authors, Volumes I, 2nd Ed. and Volume II (now out of print). While each volume has been published separately, The Big Book was created to combine them into one volume—also requested by many—and to produce them in paperback.

This one volume, nor any book large or small, addresses all the problem areas that writers and authors recognize. It’s a matter of personal knowledge; how much one already knows and how much more each needs to learn for clarification. No one book can contain all that information even if narrowed down by genre. Rather, it’s important to have a personal working library, preferably books about grammar and composition in addition to those specific to genre writing.

My hope is that these tips and numerous examples will help others toward improving their skills and feeling sure about the prose they produce. Once the fundamentals are learned, writing becomes more joyful. The basic knowledge we learned in school formed the solid foundation of grammar, composition and other elements of writing. Following that, we need to learn how to write for today’s markets and today’s readers. That’s where one’s personal style begins to take shape. From there, we study the current changes in writing and learn how to express our talents through our stories.

Writing is a lonely process that demands many hours of solitude and intense concentration. For such diligent effort, I wish those writers huge successes in their endeavors.

Feedback continues to relate how these articles are a valuable resource. I continue to research and write articles and welcome authors’ questions for clarification. Queries can be sent through my website, writeanygenre.com on the Contact Me page.

To reprint or use any of my articles—or to request a new one written about a specific topic—reach me through my secure website: https://www.marydeal.com.

To reprint or contact the authors who have contributed articles, reach them through the links provided in their Biographies, found at the end of this book.

When it comes to an expert writing about writing, Mary Deal, editor and award-winning author of several suspense novels, has extensive knowledge about the craft. Fortunately for the rest of us, she’s willing to share her expertise., which includes demystifying the mysteries of how to get your writing published. I whole-heartedly recommend her resourceful guide, Write It Right – Tips for Authors, for authors serious about their work and the craft of writing in general.

~ Gary Val Tenuta, author, artist and book cover designer.

Acknowledgments

I owe a world of thanks to people who have critiqued my work over the years. It was their critiques that set me on the right path of learning. In no particular order:

---

Susan Whitfield – Multi-genre author

Lori Kikumoto – 1st Draft editor

Nadia Giordana – Author, publisher, TV host

Ronald Holte – Lifelong business writer, editor

Dean Alan Deal – Totally supportive son, reader, editor

Kim McDougall – Castelane, Inc., book promotion and video trailers

Sue Midlock – Author, book cover designer

Stacy Juba – Author, blogger

Mike Angley – Author, blogger

Martha A. Cheves – Author, reviewer, promoter

Valerie Storey – Author, reviewer, blogger

Amy Ramsey – Author, reviewer, blogger

Barbara Mims Deming – Author, reviewer, blogger

Beth Edwards – Artist, blogger, promoter

Elizabeth English – Founder/Director, Moondance International Film Festival

---

A huge Thank you! to all the sites and blogs who’ve published my work.

Another big Thank you! to all my followers and readers – who really are the ones who make my career choices work for me.

About this Book

Each of these articles was written for various purposes and different publications. This book is a great starter point for new writers, but much of the information will help seasoned authors refresh their knowledge of these elements of writing.

Due to the ever-changing world of the Internet, if a link does not work, please do a search for the site of your interest.

This volume is not the be-all end-all of writing instruction. It is simply a compilation of many of my articles. Another volume may eventually follow to keep up with the ever-changing world of writing and publishing.

Begin at the Beginning

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1

The First Time Writer

Some people seem unable to get a first story started no matter how many exciting plots they have rattling around in the attic. The advice given in some articles is meant to motivate would-be authors to begin. That same advice is sought by those already established in their careers and wishing to improve their talents.

You will....

have a story when you begin and be able to finish writing it.

develop your voice after you begin to write.

thoroughly understand character development when you realize how much fun it is to create story people.

learn all aspects of building a story. It happens naturally as you recognize your need to know more about composition.

learn to edit your work to perfection and will realize that the editing process begins from the moment you start to formulate sentences, paragraphs and then chapters.

discover ways to polish your prose and make it uniquely yours.

learn how to promote yourself even if thinking yourself a wallflower.

However, none of this can happen unless you reach the point of starting that first story. I would love to hear success stories from anyone who was helped by the advice in this book. I would wish everyone luck, but it’s not a matter of luck. It’s a matter of letting go of all the reasons for not writing and then getting started. It’s as simple as that.

2

Basic Reference Library

Serious writers have books and publications to which they refer. In my own reference library, I have had nearly 200 books but whittled it down to about thirty. Some books I purchased new; others I unashamedly scoured amazon.com, garage sales, flea markets, CraigsList, eBay and other sources to find what I wanted at a reasonable price.

Some reference books are now in eBook format. You can also find many printed on the Net and simply bookmark them for later reference.

The following is a brief list of only a few of my books and ones I would recommend every writer have in addition to their personal favorites:

Dictionary – an updated, thick, thorough one

Thesaurus – the biggest and best you can find

Chicago Manual of Style – University of Chicago Press – These are the rules that govern not only the writing industry but all of grammar usage, and some rules change from time to time.

Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary – These are updated periodically. When writing about medicine or health, you’ll need to keep your medical and anatomical facts correct.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers-How to Edit Yourself into Print – by Dave King and Renni Browne, Harper-Collins

Elements of Style – by William Strunk, Macmillian

Elements of Grammar – by Margaret Shertzer, Macmillian

---

Also handy to have are character naming sourcebooks. You can find names by searching on the Net by country, nationality, or culture. In my thriller, The Howling Cliffs – Sara Mason Mysteries Book Two, it was imperative that I had the names of the Vietnamese Hmong characters spelled correctly and named for the parts they played in the story.

Character Naming Sourcebook – Sherrilyn Kenyon, writersdigestshop.com. This thick volume separates names by nationality and culture and also gives their meanings.

Multicultural Baby Names – MJ Abadie, Longmeadow. Although I have this book, you can also do a Net search for new baby and children’s names to keep up with what’s popular as trends change and depending on the time period of your story.

50001 Best Baby Names – by Diane Stafford, Sourcebooks, Inc.

---

Mystery and crime writers should have some police procedural books handy, or pay attention to the jargon and colloquialisms you hear officers using on TV shows. Here are two good ones that are updated periodically.

Police Procedural – Russell Bintliff, Writer’s Digest Books

Cop Speak: The Lingo of Law Enforcement and Crime – Tom Philbin, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

---

When you include foreign characters, their language, accents and brogue should also be accurate. Books are available quoting language nuances from different countries. Two such:

NTC’s Dictionary of British Slang and Colloquialisms – Ewart James, NTC Publishing Group

SLANG: The Authoritative Topic-by-Topic Dictionary of American Lingoes from All Walks of Life – Paul Dickson, Pocket Books

---

When you’re ready to publish, you should have some reference books that can both help you publish your work and manage publicity.

Let’s Get Digital: How to Self-Publish, and Why You Should (3rd Edition) – David Gaughran

1001 Ways to Market Your Books – John Kremer, Open Horizons – Meet this helpful expert on TheBookMarketingNetwork.com.

---

This list is meant to help you build a usable library. I highly recommend the first five no matter what else you add to your collection or decide to pass over. Remember, too, to keep your information updated, no matter the source.

Nonfiction writers have certain books and instructions they follow. Too, screenplays, have a whole list of aids for that genre. Some information for these are included here but we’ll be publishing more in the next volume when it is completed.

3

A File of Notes

Every time a writer gets an idea, an intense plot line, a shocking sentence, a joke, it should be jotted down. Those that are hand written should soon be entered with the rest into a file of notes in a word processor. Before walking away from that note, make sure you have captured it properly in words, so the original mood or thought is clearly expressed.

Nothing is worse than to look back at your entries, searching for something you know you logged, and not understand what you wrote. Or perhaps what you wrote in haste doesn’t trigger the original excitement. You may not know into which story any of the notes fit, but they are just too good a thought or idea and should be captured, given life, and not left to recall later when the original creativity and memory has faded.

Into that file of notes goes everything that you cannot presently use. Character sketches, humor, plot ideas, beginnings, endings, titles, something someone said. You name it. From this file of notes is where you will draw many tidbits to enhance your stories, present or future, especially when your muse takes unannounced time off.

Very often with me, a certain entry will stand out in my mind and my muse will play with it, that is, enlarge the idea, and make something happen with it. At that point I usually know into which story the material can be applied. Should I not know where it belongs, I simply record the new information expanding the first idea and then leave it alone.

I have gone back to my notes for each and every novel or short story that I write. In the case of making notations of funny lines and crazy quips, when I have a particular character with an off-the-wall personality, I know exactly which lines I can pull from the notes and incorporate into my story.

The importance of note making can’t be stressed enough; hence, the use of the proverbial paper table napkin, ala JK Rowling and Ernest Hemingway before her.

4

9 Tips for Beginners

Tip #1 – Store Some Writing Tips

Usually when I see great writing tips, I have a file set up in Word called - what else? Writing Tips. I copy and paste the advice into my file to refer to when needed. Included is the name of the author of the tidbit, in case I wish to quote them at some future time. Any handwritten notes I’ve made as reminders also get transcribed and posted there.

Simply for clarification: When quoting another person’s writing or spoken word, up to only 100 words may be used and the originator of the piece must be given credit.

---

Tip #2 – Be Prepared to Write

Keep writing materials handy no matter where you go. That one stunning idea you forgot to write down but were sure you’d remember, and then forgot completely, could have been the one fragment that made your story memorable.

We writers should make notes everywhere we go. If without a laptop, we carry note pads and pens. JK Rowling used paper table napkins because she used to sit in her favorite cafe lamenting her jobless plight - till a shift happened in her mind and she started penning the notes for her first novel.

Ernest Hemingway wrote on table napkins when sitting in one of his two favorite bars in Cuba, El Floridita and La Bodequita del Medio.

---

Tip #3 - Beginnings

Avoid using empty words to start a story. Some empty words are:

There - refers to a place

They - refers to people

That - refers to a thing

It - refers to almost anything

Without first knowing the content of your story, we have no idea to what each refers. For example, one person may write:

There were four of them.

Without yet knowing the story, ask yourself: There? Where were they? Who were they? A better way to bring the action forward would be to say,

Four of them appeared.

Or get directly into the meat of your story and say:

Four men dressed in black mysteriously appeared out of nowhere.

You can write much more succinctly when using descriptive words, and not empty ones to start a story or sentence or paragraph.

Exceptions are:

The Charles Dickens line: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. I see no way to improve on that – or emulate it. that’s because It refers is clarified right there in each sentence: ...best of times. ... worst of times.

Also: It was a dark and stormy night, coined by the Victorian writer, Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. Surely, you wouldn’t write: A dark and stormy night had overtaken us. Or would you?

Sentences beginning with It, especially beginning entire books, had their places in yesteryear’s prose. Such lackadaisical nondescript expressions are not acceptable in the descriptive writing demanded of these modern times.

Learn more about the importance of correct word usage in the Nuts and Bolts section of this volume.

---

Tip #4 – The First Word of a Story

The first word of the first sentence of the first paragraph under the story title must grab attention. The first sentence must sustain the attention, and on through the first paragraph. If the first word or sentence is boring, or says nothing in particular, the readers’ expectations of a good story are killed.

What effect does this sentence have on your expectations?

It was a quiet town with quiet people.

Does that give you any idea at all as to what the story might be about? As far as the reader knows from that line, nothing happens in that town. Boring.

You can use the word The to begin anywhere, but what follows must then become the attention grabber.

Here’s an example of starting with The from my adventure novel, Legacy of The Tropics:

The jagged scar on Pablo’s belly wriggled like a snake when he ran.

Here’s the attention grabber from my Amazon bestselling, paranormal Egyptian suspense, The Ka:

Witch! Randy Osborne said as he strode around the room wearing a contemptible smirk.

And from my Amazon bestselling, award-winning thriller, River Bones – Sara Mason Mysteries Book One:

Blood-red letters filled the top of the monitor screen: Serial Killer Victim Identified.

Then from my Amazon bestselling, award-winning thriller, Down to the Needle:

The perp torched himself, a fireman said, shouting to be heard over the clamor.

Whether narration or dialogue, start your stories with words and action that pull the reader into the scene.

---

Tip #5 - Use of the Passive Voice

Passive voice should be used with serious consideration as to how it affects your story.

A bad example: The house was cleaned by someone else. Here, the object of the action is incorrectly the subject of the sentence.

A good example: Someone else cleaned the house. Someone else did the action. That person should be the subject of the sentence. Ask yourself who or what is doing the action. They are the subject of the sentence. The action they are performing should not be the subject.

Passive voice can best be used, and sparingly, when writing in first person. Example: I was hit by the car.

---

Tip #6 – A Rejection for a Comma

My publishing house editor returned my manuscript again after I made most of the changes suggested in the first edit. The editor referred me to the Chicago Manual of Style and told me to get it right.

Can you find what’s wrong with this sentence?

He mumbled as if confused, tried the knob, grunted and tried again.

The Chicago Manual of Style (Page 173 of my 14th Edition) says: 5.57 - In a series consisting of three or more elements, the elements are separated by commas. When a conjunction joins the last two elements in a series, a comma is used before the conjunction.

Therefore the corrected sentence is:

He mumbled as if confused, tried the knob, grunted, and tried again.

Did you spot the correction? Can you sense the difference as you read it?

In order to avoid rejections, the grammar in your story must conform to the rules, especially since knowing that publishers adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style.

---

Tip #7 – Avoid Splitting Infinitives

Be conscious of any form of to be. A great example of a split infinitive is: To boldly go where no man….

Everyone knows that line. It just doesn’t sound right to use: To go boldly where no man….

Look at these two:

To be, or not to be.

To be, or to not be.

Though split infinitives are a matter of style, incorrect usage at the wrong time can ruin a good story and make the writer seem like an amateur. Contradictory, incorrect usage at the right time can set your prose apart from all the rest. It can be done, but seldom. How many writers have produced lines of narration or dialogue that can compare to that one line from Star Trek?

---

Tip #8 – Edit and Revise

We MUST edit and revise as many times as necessary to get it right. Otherwise, what could we expect but another rejection? Knowing if a story is right comes with experience of editing our own work as if it were someone else's prose.

Once writers think their stories are finished and polished, even though they may have had a great edit, they refuse to go through another rewrite. Then, I ask, what's the sense of having the piece edited? I edited my entire Ka novel manuscript - 885 manuscript pages (410 book pages) - a minimum of 30 times over four years and stopped counting after that. Point is, the story had to be right before anyone other than my personal editors saw it. All of that happened before the publisher's editor saw it. Then there were two more edits following that person's sage advice.

Most of us writers are not English majors with PhD’s. No matter how good we believe our writing to be, editing is the only means to perfecting our craft.

---

Tip #9 - Reference Books

Get yourself a current copy of The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers. I also recommend the Complete Stylist Handbook by Sheridan Baker and Writing with Clarity and Style by Robert A. Harris.

5

3 Reasons for Writing Sequels

(The purpose for this article being placed near the beginning is due to the ease of electronic publishing, people realize they can see their stories published. All have the same questions about what to do with the numerous and varied plots and characters running through their minds, clambering for release. This article will help decide which route a new author might choose.)

Writing sequels can be planned ahead of time.

Almost every writer has more than one story running through their mind. The fledgling writer needs to learn how to sort it out to keep story action crisp and on point.

So, too, even a published author can change course and set future stories using the best characters from one particular book.

Writing sequels are not every writer’s dream. It’s enough for some to conjure one story. Or, unbeknownst to themselves, writers may have ideas for several non-related stories that remain vastly differing in content. Yet, they wonder how all that action might fit into one plot. That lucky person has more than one book in them!

Three reasons exist for writing sequels that should be part of the planning of any writing career. Mysteries are a good genre for writing sequels. We’ll use that as an example.

---

1) The would-be author has so many ideas for a story running around in his or her mind that they do not know how to pull it all together to help the main character solve a whole plethora of dilemmas.

Think of it this way:

How many crimes can the main character solve with one plot?

How many villains or antagonists should the main character face in one story?

No matter how many life-threatening occurrences the main character faces in one story, only one focal reason for the story can be included, one main goal that drives the plot and its characters. All occurrences in that story propel it toward the ending. Anything that doesn’t move the characters to that one ending is fodder for a separate story.

The fledgling author setting out to write their first blockbuster needs to keep notes and files and separate out each plot, each with its own plot points. They lead that story toward its end. When you begin to see the characters in successive plots, that’s the time you begin to think about sequels or, in the least, separate unrelated stories with new characters.

---

2) You know ahead of time that you will write sequels because you have all these ideas for exciting mysteries. If old enough, you’ve may have watched Jessica Fletcher solve one mystery after another in Murder She Wrote. Her stories don’t all take place in Cabot Cove. She travels a lot and has an array of friendships the world over. Sometimes she doesn’t look for anything to solve. Problems have a way of finding her. Your character can have those qualities.

Your stories can contain mild-mannered characters, or they can have hard-boiled heroines or villains, or all of them.

You begin to see the plot actions of a story dividing like morphing amoeba and taking on lives of their own.

Maintain a file of notes to keep each plot separate.

---

3) The third reason comes as hindsight. You’ve written a book. Your readers love your characters and ask what will happen to them next.

Such was the case with my thriller, River Bones. I received statements and questions like....

Sara’s unexpected new life is amazing. Will she find more of those missing people in future stories?

If you write sequels, will Sara’s future cases be centered in the Sacramento River Delta? (This question was asked mostly by my lifelong friends in the Delta—my childhood hometown locale—who await each sequel with bated breath.)

Will Huxley ever find his MIA brother in Vietnam?

What about Esmerelda’s MIA daughter?

Doesn’t the Epilogue suggest sequels?

When your readers single out one of your books and begin to ask about the future lives of the characters, perhaps it’s time to begin writing sequels to that story, if you haven’t begun already.

Listen to your reader’s questions, their likes and dislikes about the plot and characters, and then decide. In fact, reader’s remarks can dictate what your un-preplanned sequels may contain.

However, you don’t have to wait till your book is published and read to receive comments. You should have readers along the way, proofing and editing and coaching you. Listen to their comments as well.

I wrote the first sequel to River Bones after writing yet another unrelated thriller. While the comments poured in for River Bones, I was already in the process of writing and publishing Down to the Needle, a totally unique plot all its own.

Writing sequels for more than one set of characters was not in my planning. Not all books can have sequels. I may be a multi-tasker, but I wanted to keep a tight focus on which story to continue in future books. I decided that all my future stories could be written with the characters from River Bones with a few characters dropping out and new ones appearing.

Then I wrote The Howling Cliffs, the first sequel to River Bones. By that time, and after reader comments, the plot of The Howling Cliffs was already set in my mind and in notes, as are the next couple of stories. In my series, all of them may appear together in a story if they all have appropriate roles.

After you’ve published and received particular attention to one story or set of characters and your readers are telling you they want more, give them what they want. They will look forward to your next book and the next.

Whether you are just beginning to write your first story, sorting out myriad plot points, or have written and published a book, think about writing sequels.

Particularly when you have ideas for separate stories, before you begin