CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

June 8_2 455 wc Thoughts on Series

I have three series-in-progress. Under the criteria given here, the first two would qualify as “unplanned” series. In both series I continued beyond Book One because I became so enamoured of the protagonist I didn't want to release them to oblivion. So I will not deal with those two series in this homework.





         The third series I began in April; it started simply as a Stage Play for Script Frenzy. From there I had planned to write a series based on one of the secondary characters, Obax, to be titled The Yoruba Series. Instead, once I finished the Play, I researched (for a total of about 6 weeks-2 months) on The Civil War and Reconstruction (till it was coming out my eyes and ears) and decided to write a series on those topics, chronologically. Unfortunately, perhaps, I started this as a straight historical-and just as with my intended straight historical novel about the execution and life of Rosa Luxembourg, it didn't fly.





         So the result on The Civil War Series is two chapters on Book One, and eleven chapters on Book Five.





         Here is the outline I prepared for the Series back in April or May. Oh, at the time I began this series I was participating in Ann's workshop on Karen Wiesner's First Draft in 30 Days and studying the book on my own, so there was much more outlining done (not all included here) for this series. I just counted twenty separate files including setting sketches, plot sketches, many individual character sketches, dialogue worksheet, timeline, summary outline, and so forth, so I'll include only a few of these here.


B. A critical examination of my proposals and outlined work on this series reveals a couple of serious and fatal flaws. One, once again I have proven to myself I do not have the creative capacity to write straight historical fiction. Although I love and devour the genre, reading almost anything in almost any time period or era, it's not in me to write it. If it's not haunted, horror, Supernatural, paranormal (EXCLUDING vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters), or at minimum mystery, suspense, thriller, or possibly fantasy-esp. Dark fantasy-forget it, I'm not going there and can't go there. So two months of research six weeks of outlining and planning is basically for naught, not apropos, and now rendered irrelevant. The best I can hope for from this experience (barring the deus ex machina of a ghostwriter or a co-author) is to take Book Five (Season of the Night-Riders, add in what I can that I would otherwise have included in Books One-Four, and run with it as a simple stand-alone novel. So this Series of five novels is now officially condensed into one novel.