8 Ways to Keep a Long-Running Series Fresh, Book After Book

One of the great joys of writing a continuing series is that it gives us, as authors, the luxury of exploring the changes wrought by the passage of time on our characters. As we follow them from one book to the next, we—and our readers—can see how events in previous books continue to shape our characters, force them to grow, or, sometimes, damage them.

(4 Tips for Building Suspense in Mysteries.)

But a series also presents challenges. How do we maintain a sense of freshness when writing about the same characters for 20 years? How do we add new layers to our protagonists and their lives in ways that keep readers coming back for more?

When I started writing my Sebastian St. Cyr historical mystery series way back in 2003, I was hoping to be able to produce—maybe—six or eight novels in the series. And so, long before I sat down to begin the first chapter of that first book, I spent several years thinking about Sebastian.

I pondered the kind of man he would be, the past that helped make him that way, and the ordeals he would face; I thought about the people around him, about their lives and personalities. And then I put it all together, crafting the arc of Sebastian’s personal story. I essentially envisioned the series as one long saga, with each novel functioning much like a chapter in the overarching tale of Sebastian’s life that plays out behind the series of standalone mysteries.

Ironically, I seriously overestimated how much each book in the series would progress that background story arc; by the time I wrote book eight, I wasn’t halfway through Sebastian’s tangled personal tale. I’m currently finishing Book #21, and I’m still not finished. Despite that miscalculation—or perhaps because of it?—all that advance planning has paid off. And if I were to distill what I’ve learned from the experience down to concrete suggestions for other authors, here are eight of the most important:

In the very first book, my protagonist, Sebastian St. Cyr, begins to suspect that he has been living a lie. Is the Earl of Hendon really Sebastian’s father? If he isn’t, then who is? What happened to Sebastian’s mother the summer he was 11? Did she really die? If she’s still alive, where is she? Will Sebastian ever see her again? And what the heck is the story behind that strange necklace?

Sebastian’s longtime friend, the surgeon-anatomist Paul Gibson, is a one-legged veteran with a serious opium addiction. Kat, the old love who comes back into Sebastian’s life when he’s on the run for a murder he didn’t commit, has been secretly spying for the French. His valet, Calhoun, has a mother who owns one of London’s most notorious flash houses. The more questions you can raise in your readers’ minds, the better.

Sebastian’s continuing nemesis, Lord Jarvis, is the ruthless, amoral royal cousin who serves as the real power behind the Prince’s fragile regency. Not only is he a dangerous enemy to have, but partway into the series he becomes Sebastian’s father-in-law. And there are hints that Sebastian has at least one more enemy lurking in the weeds that he only gradually becomes aware of.

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This one can easily become a cliché, so try to think beyond the recovering-alcoholic PI who left a distant city’s police force because they accidently killed their best friend/a child/a pregnant woman. Sebastian is a veteran of the Peninsular War who witnessed Something Really Awful and then did Something Really Awful. Those twin events haunt him throughout the series, although the reader doesn’t learn all the details until somewhere around book nine or 10. Not only do those events trouble him, but they also provide the motivation for much of what he does.

Love interests are a great way to add conflict, suspense, and change. At last count, James Lee Burke has killed off three of Dave Robicheaux’s wives. But be warned: If your readers get overly invested in your protagonist’s initial love story, some will not take it kindly when that ends. (Yes, that’s the voice of experience talking.)

Nevada Barr did this by setting her Anna Pigeon series against various national parks; Burke introduced millions to Louisiana’s Cajun culture. Historical settings offer rich, useful backgrounds, especially if you stay true to the facts (as a recovering history prof, that’s important to me). What Angels Fear, the first book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series, is set against the machinations surrounding King George III’s descent into madness and the 1811 proclamation of the Regency. The Napoleonic War plays a part in many of the books, as do Napoleon’s escape from Elba, Waterloo, and such lesser-known historical events as the Frost Fair of 1814, the accidental discovery of Charles I’s decapitated corpse, and Jane Austen’s visit to her beleaguered brother.

When you put a long-time series character in jeopardy, it’s easy for readers to think, “He’ll be okay; he’s a continuing character.” Kill off your protagonist’s brother or the dear friend we’ve known for six books, and your readers will never make that mistake again. Plus, killing off a character is a great way to shake things up.

Whether a series continues for five, 10, or 20 books, the events the characters experience, the things they do and witness, need to change them. So does the passage of time. A 30-year-old protagonist should be more mature than they were at 25. Relationships change. And the mileage should start to add up. That bullet your protagonist took in the thigh in Book 12 means they can’t run as fast in Book 13, perhaps with serious consequences. Marriage also changes a man or a woman, as does having children. They aren’t going to rush into danger as recklessly as they might once have done; they’ll pause, think of the consequences, weigh the odds. They now have more at stake.

You don’t necessarily need to come up with all of these before you begin writing your series; some will inevitably come in a bolt of inspiration one night when you’re lying awake wrestling with the plot of book #10. But the more of these concepts you can incorporate, the easier it will be to keep your continuing series fresh. Your future self with thank you.

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