{"id":34157,"date":"2017-04-03T06:30:29","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T18:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=34157"},"modified":"2017-03-14T21:07:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-14T08:07:21","slug":"lessons-learned-from-the-process-of-writing-and-plotting-a-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2017\/04\/03\/lessons-learned-from-the-process-of-writing-and-plotting-a-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned From The Process of Writing and Plotting A Series"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"daughter-of-blood-by-helen-lowe\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

This is really a follow up to last week’s question on the hardest part of writing a quartet, although the questions were asked by different interviewers in distinct interviews, both at the time Daughter of Blood<\/a><\/em> was published.<\/p>\n

Today’s question came from Civilian Reader<\/a>, who asked (in full): Three books in, what lessons have you learned from the process of writing and plotting the series? Is there anything you wish you could have done differently?<\/em><\/p>\n

To which I replied:<\/p>\n

“I think the most profound lesson I have learned is that even when you are telling one story in four parts, every book is different and you have to approach it that way from the start. Again to quote Ursula Le Guin, \u201cthe boat of story \u2026 <\/em>knows its course\u201d<\/em> but it\u2019s also highly unlikely to follow the same route a second time. So as a writer I have had to learn to listen to the story and what it\u2019s telling me about the course it\u2019s charted\u2014which may not be at all the same path I was proposing to take, even if it is to reach the same destination (which so far has proven to be the case.)<\/span><\/p>\n

To be honest, though, I think that\u2019s rather wonderful\u2014and who would want<\/em> to write the same book a second time, anyway? And it\u2019s that difference between each book that allows both your story and writing to grow.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a more prosaic level, another lesson I learned very early on with the Wall series is that the more point-of-view characters you add in the bigger your story will get. Just sayin\u2019.”<\/span><\/p>\n

To read the interview in full, click on:<\/p>\n

Civilian Reader: An Interview With Helen Lowe<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is really a follow up to last week’s question on the hardest part of writing a quartet, although the questions were asked by different interviewers in distinct interviews, both at the time Daughter of Blood was published. Today’s question came from Civilian Reader, who asked (in full): Three books in, what lessons have you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,50,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-writing","category-epicfantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34160,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34157\/revisions\/34160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}