It can be challenging to decide whether your story should be a series or not. Some stories are better suited for one novel, while others are more suited as a series. When I first began writing Dream Sparks I had the mindset of seeing where it went. I had thought of it being one novel, but as time went on it was clear that it needed more space to reach its full potential. A friend recently mentioned that they weren’t sure if their story should be a series or not, and it got me to thinking about what caused me to decide on a series, as opposed to what I had originally planned.
One way to tell if a story would be better as a series is by how the story is naturally written. As I got closer to the end of Dream Sparks I realized that the ideas I had for Franca’s adventure couldn’t fit into one novel. In fact, when I finished Dream Sparks I had things that were meant for the first book that had to be carried over to the next. Some of these things wouldn’t fit in there either, and are being saved for future After Reads posts. That was the biggest indicator that pointed towards making the story a series. Sometimes our stories do the best when we let things naturally come about.
If you like to plot out your story ahead of time, you could also look at the word count that your chapters are hitting on average, and line that up with the plot. If you know generally how long your plot will take in words, you can get an idea of how many novels it will fit in by looking up the expected word count for the genre you’re working in. Comparing it to that can give you a guideline to follow early on. Keep in mind that the word count doesn’t matter as much if you are self publishing, though in my opinion it’s still a good idea to have your word count line up just in case you decide to go with a publisher later on.
Looking at the word count in this way also can help you decide how many books will be in your series. For The Vision of Light Series I’m aiming for three novels, and have planned it that way (book two is going to be coming out soon!) Unless the plot has a compelling reason to stretch out to a fourth novel, I’m not going to be changing my plan on that. So far this plan is working very well for the series. In my opinion writing a story that fits into one novel would be better for writing a book for the first time, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Either way, it’s keeping a habit of writing that matters, and it’s important to not stress about how long or short the story will be. It will play out exactly the way it needs to if it has a solid plot.
