The challenges of writing a long series & Guardian of Monsters

Bonaventure plots

 I’ve wanted to write a long series, like forever. I am a slow-ish writer and the longest series I've written to date is the Fireseed series, only two books and a sequel novella. Finally, I'm embarking on a long series, and I’ve completed book one! I will wait to launch until I have two or three books done.

Guardian of Monsters is urban fantasy, a genre I have grown to like, having penned two shared world titles in this genre (Alpha's Revenge and Secrets of the Mermaid). It’s a private investigator series, set in Savannah, and starring two supernaturals I created in my other books, Luna Finley, a mermaid and water mage, and Celestine LeBlanc, a witch and wolf-shifter. 

I just returned from a research and fact-checking trip to Savannah. I had scenes set in Bonaventure Cemetery, where I took a two-hour walking tour and discovered mistakes in my plotting. I had Celestine just walking in there at night. Turns out there’s a huge, locked fence around it. I also went to the salt marshes where I'd set scenes. Such beauty! I went to the Savannah School of Art and Design, where I set scenes, and discovered it’s the largest art school in the country, with 70 buildings scattered around the city! And who knew Savannah is the third largest port city in the USA. 

Savannah historic district porch

Anyway, it's smart to do extensive research into your subject, whether you're a plotter or pantser. Another challenge of writing a long series with romance, is that you have to find ways to keep the love interests from totally getting together. I’m used to having them commit to each other at the end of a single title novel. And since this is a PI thriller series, I want the next client to walk in at the end of each book and hire them, to intrigue readers into reading the following book. That means I have to figure out at least the rough plot of the next novel each time! 

Here’s the VERY rough blurb for book one, and some photos from Savannah.

Guardian of Monsters (Sleuths of Shadow Salon, urban fantasy PI series, Book 1)

Celestine, witch and wolf shifter has a talent for prophetic drawings. She’s shocked when she draws her landlord Ray with his eyes gouged out and a strange winged-mermaid leaning over him. Later she finds an eyeless Ray dead on the sidewalk. All she wanted to do was open a gallery, but first she must apprehend his killer. In a posthumous note, Ray wrote he wasn’t just a leather-smith but a supernatural pirate mage. Years back, his Jekyll crew trapped the evil Demon Three Eyes clan. Ray feared they’d escaped, were stalking him, and would soon wreak havoc on Savannah.

Oryn, a fellow student in Celestine’s continuing ed art class, is a fae and a thorn in her side, when he asks nosy questions about the case. Yet, she’s drawn to him when he’s her masseur at the spa she frequents, and he’s clever at brainstorming leads regarding Ray’s case. He insists his air magic could come in handy.

When pirates in Ray’s old crew are murdered, their body parts stolen, Celestine puts more horrifying clues together. She’ll need everyone on board, including Luna, a mermaid asking to show her sea-glass sculptures at Celestine’s new gallery—and the very same mermaid in Celestine’s tragic drawing of Ray. Otherwise, the lethal monstrosity Demon Three Eyes is unleashing on Savannah will destroy the city and everyone in it. 

Have you penned a long series? If so, what were some of your challenges?

Salt Marsh

Shifters, Revenge & the Shadow Self

I’m writing a paranormal romance in a shared world shifter series, The Royal Alpha Wolves Club. My book is called Alpha’s Revenge, starring Wayland Leblanc. He craves revenge after his whole royal line is slaughtered by the Tundra, a rival royal pack. The worst thing? They killed Wayland’s fated mate, Sabine and their unborn heir.

It’s ironic that I’m tackling a shifter hero, after I steadfastly avoided reading Stephanie Mayer’s Twilight series (or watching the films), which fueled the newest mania for shifters (Though, let's face it, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were shifters). I thought Twilight was for teens and so I couldn’t quite square it with my reality, though I've realized, I was making assumptions. In fact, I have written about shifters… I’ve created water sprites, ghosts, witches and Dorianna, who forged a deal with the Prince of Darkness, and shifted into a beastly version of herself that became almost unrecognizable.

Another irony is that in the last year, I’ve pinned up lots of wolf, fox and coyote images on my bedroom wall. Why? I identify with their feral drive, their loyalty to family and love for their forest homes. Also, their sharp instincts. Here’s one of the images I love most. It’s a mama coyote and her pups (Photo credit: Jim Zuckerman for the Sierra Club).

In fact, in Alpha’s Revenge when Wayland returns solo to his native Canada to eke out his form of payback, he befriends and enlists a pack of scruffy, wily coyote shifters. I wrote those scenes before I took this card down from my wall and saw that these guys were not wolves but coyotes! Excellent coincidence.

Anyway, I’m reminded of Carl Gustav Jung’s writings on the Shadow Self:

"Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts, which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.”

This quote is good too…

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.” … “In each of us there is another whom we do not know.” – Jung

Finally, here’s the cover of Alpha’s Revenge. It launches on September 3rd and I’m really enjoying writing it!

What do you think is essential in a (wolf) shifter character? What would you like to see in one that you don’t usually see? What’s your favorite shifter type?