Happy Monday, my bookish divas and divos. I’m finding it a bit hard to accept that this is the last Monday in January of 2021. It seems as if this month just started a few days ago yet took forever to get to now. I look forward to the New Year and all of the new books being published as well as the new-to-me authors I know I’ll be introduced to along the way. Today, I’m pleased to introduce you to one of those new-to-me authors, Alissa Grosso. Ms. Grosso is the author of the Culver Creek mystery series, which includes Up The Creek. She’ll be discussing with us just one of the many lessons I’ve learned over the years, easy reading makes for hard writing, and she describes the seven things she’s learned about writing a book series. I hope you’ll enjoy what she has to say, follow along with the blog tour, enter the tour-wide giveaway, and add Up the Creek to your reading list. Thank you, Ms. Grosso for joining us today. The blog is now yours!
7 Things I Learned Writing a Book Series
Alissa Grosso
As someone who has started writing and abandoned more novels than she cares to disclose, I knew that writing my first book series would be a daunting proposition, but I also knew that a series could be a great way to build an author’s fanbase and also actually earn a decent living from this writing thing, so I was determined to do it. Along the way, I learned a few things.
1. Make Sure You Like Your Protagonist
Writing a series of books means you’ll be spending a whole lot of time with the main character of your series. Sage Dorian, who features in Up the Creek and the other novels in my Culver Creek series is a police detective still haunted by the unsolved murder of his sister. He’s a tortured and complex individual whose story unfolds over the series. His life situation gave me plenty of fodder for the four books in the series, but I also decided to give him a few traits that helped endear him to me. Like me, Sage doesn’t eat meat and can’t abide the taste or smell of coffee. Though his reasons are different, his eating and drinking habits helped to make him someone I enjoyed spending time with. Because it turned out I was going to spend more time with him than I originally planned.
2. Series Sometimes Become Longer Than You Planned
The Culver Creek series was supposed to be a trilogy. This was deliberate. I was new to this whole writing series thing, and I figured I would start with the bare minimum of books to be considered a series. Three seemed doable to me. Then I began working on the third book in the series, and it was a disaster. There was too much going on. There were too many characters. The whole thing was a convoluted mess. I took some time to think about it, and realized that the book I was working on was actually two different books, and thus my trilogy turned into a four-book series.
3. Copyeditors Are Invaluable
Look, even if you are working on a standalone book, it would be in your best interest to work with a good copyeditor. No matter how many times you read your book, and think you have cleaned things up and fixed all of your mistakes, copyeditors will find plenty more that needs fixing. And when it comes to keeping track of characters, settings and other important details, copyeditors are amazing. Once, years ago, I wrote a book, and while working on it my copyeditor pointed out by her count I had written of a July that was seven weeks long. Look, in my defense sometimes July feels seven weeks long, but thankfully I had a copyeditor to set me straight. I worked with freelance copyeditor Lisa Gilliam on all four books in the Culver Creek series, and she did amazing work including making sure that all the details I described matched from one book to the next. (She did not work on this blog post at all so any mistakes are mine, and mine alone.)
4. Characters Can Surprise You
There’s a big debate in the writing world between pantsing and plotting, that is writing by the seat of your pants and making things up as you go along, or writing outlines and carefully planning your book. I’m a reformed pantser, and these days tend not to dive into a book until I have written at least a rough outline for it. So, I had a plan when I set out to write the Culver Creek series, and wrote out outlines before working on each book. But even so, I found that some characters surprised me. The biggest surprises came while I was working on the fourth book, where I ended up rewriting my outline halfway through because I realized my original plan for the book wasn’t as good as this new version.
5. Write All the Books First
Depending on your publishing situation, this might not work for everyone, but if you can write all the books in a limited series before publishing the first one, it might just save you some grief, like if for instance you get to the fourth book, realize that things are going to be radically different than you first planned, and then need to go back to the previous books to make a few little tweaks to make sure everything fits with this new development. If Up the Creek had already been published, when I started working on Book 4, Blood Answer, I wouldn’t have been able to change things up the way I wanted.
6. Publishing a Book is a LOT of Work, Publishing Four is Even More Work
I’m not going to lie, there were times during the writing and publication planning of this book series that I asked myself why I was publishing four books, one right after the other. I love writing books, but these days being an author means that you have to do a lot of things beside simply writing a book. I don’t regret my decision to publish a book series, and hopefully I’ll publish another series or two down the road, but it IS a lot of work.
7. Have Fun
That’s why it’s so important to have fun when you are writing and publishing your books. There are tedious tasks to be sure, but if you write a book that you truly enjoy reading, because you’ll likely be reading it over and over again as you ready it for publication, it’s easier to find the joy in what you are doing. I write because I love books and love writing them, and I truly do have fun sharing my creations with the world.
Up the Creek
by Alissa Grosso
January 11 – March 12, 2021 Tour
Synopsis:
An unsolved murder. Disturbing dreams. A missing child.
Caitlin Walker hasn’t had a dream in nine years. But now nightmares torture her son Adam and awaken in Caitlin buried memories and a dark secret. Her husband Lance has a secret of his own, one that his son’s nightmares threaten to reveal.
In Culver Creek newly hired detective Sage Dorian works to unravel the small town’s notorious cold case, the grisly murder of a young girl.
How are Caitlin and Lance connected to the horrific crime? And how far will they go to make sure their secrets stay hidden? Find out in this riveting thriller.
Book Details:
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Published by: Glitter Pigeon Press
Publication Date: January 12, 2021
Number of Pages: 356
ISBN: 9781949852080
Series: Culver Creek Series, Book 1
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Goodreads
Author Bio:
Alissa Grosso is the author of several books for adults and teens. Originally from New Jersey, she now resides in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Find out more about Alissa Grosso and her books at:
AlissaGrosso.com
Goodreads
BookBub
Twitter
Facebook
Tour Participants:
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Giveaway!:
This is a Rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Alyssa Grosso. There will be two (2) winners each receiving one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card. The giveaway begins on January 11, 2021 and runs through March 14, 2021. Void where prohibited.
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The Book Diva's Reads 
Such great advice for writers.
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