Writing a series: Where do the stories come from?

As I put the final touches on the first draft of the fifth book of the Gaia’s Daughters & Gaia's World series, I am often asked “How do you come up with all the ideas?”

The strange thing is, I really don’t. The ideas for books suggest themselves. I’ve explained in the past that the entire Jennifer trilogy came from a question that occurred to me 20 years ago, about what it would be like going from having no job, to having a full-time job with a full salary where the work was only occasionally and

a few hours a month. Would that feel like being fully employed?

I wrote a terrible book called “Full Employment” about Ron Boyce and his job offer. This went through multiple rewrites to become a novel called “Fatima” which was mercifully never published. Ron was simply not interesting as a main character.

In taking one more shot at the story, I rewrote the book to focus on Vijay, Ron’s roommate. But Vijay needed a girlfriend. Warned by my editor not to invent too many new characters, I remembered the girl in the green dress who handed Ron his tickets at the Will Call window in the theatre. She needed a name, so I gave her Jennifer.

What happened next was that Jennifer took over the story. After learning her name, I had to know where she came from, and why she was there, and what attracted her to Vijay. Letting the question lie fallow in my mind for a week, the story was suddenly there, and all I had to do was write it down as it played out before me. This became Jennifer’s Vow.

Jennifer’s Blessing and Jennifer’s Destiny played out naturally from the first book. They were easy to write. Each night I would go to sleep wondering what would happen next, and in the morning, I would have another 1500 words of the story.

For me, book 4 started with the question of what happened to Parvati and Dylan when they reached adulthood. The first draft of Harriet’s Way started with Dylan, and his adventure and the book’s working title was Dylan, Master of the Seas. But then Dylan met the infuriatingly self-obsessed Harriet, who quickly took over the narrative. It was Harriet who propelled the story forward. So now you will soon read book 4, Harriet’s Way.

What’s next? In the Gaia’s Daughter series, I already have queued up Alice’s Adventure, and Inez’s Journey. Both are characters who show up in Harriet’s Way, but little is known about them. I have even written the opening chapter of Inez's Journey.

Meanwhile, my assistant, Amanda, asked if I could write a book on the AIs, as many people seemed to see the AIs as a dominant theme in the Jennifer Trilogy. I thought through my list of characters and remembered Rafael Morales and his girlfriend Ellie. I wanted the book to be much more action-adventure in nature, but what could they be chasing after or running from? The following morning, the answer was there. The AI war in Jennifer’s Blessing. What if Rafael inadvertently kicked it off and gained some secret knowledge in the process? This was the beginning of Running from the AIs, my current work in progress. It is my first side novel that I describe on the cover as A Gaia's World Novel.

The first draft was too short, and the AIs were one-dimensional as a threat, so I added two gang hit men to the mix; Ben and Alf. Ben is curious about what is going on and turns into a bit of a detective, which adds more depth to the story.

Out of writing Running from the AI’s, I am now thinking of a mystery series where the hitman Ben and his partner Alf try to understand the backgrounds that bring them into conflict with other underworld characters. These would be stories where the criminal is the sleuth and I believe they would stand up well as a series.

There is no shortage of other books to write. Cindy’s story calls to me, but I’m not ready to write that yet. Maybe a book about Youssef running the scavenger teams to plunder the Dead Lands. Maybe Gloria Gladstone should have her say as she goes through a transformation of her own in counselling the Subramanian family. It can’t have been as easy as she makes it look. I may update and finally publish Ron’s story, which has much of the background of Fatima and her struggle to be recognized as a natural being. The rights of AIs is a current story in the news.

As I continue to write books in this world I have created, I’m confident that each new book will produce new characters with stories to be told.

So you see, my challenge is not to think up new stories. My challenge is to pick from among all the characters clamouring to have their stories told next. Please let me know if you have a favourite character suggestion at kevin@kevincolemanauthor.com. Who knows? Your suggestion may be the subject of my sixth book.