Christina Hollis: Writing a series

We are delighted to welcome Christina Hollis to the blog today. Many writers would like to know about writing a series of books and how to carry characters forward to their own stories and books. As well as writing this information blog post Christina has generously offered one of her books as a prize to our readers.

I’d always wanted to write a series of novels with characters in common, but I was so happy writing one-off romances (you can find a selection here, http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/christina-hollis), it never happened. Until—

It Was A Dark And Stormy... Afternoon

The idea for His Majesty’s Secret Passion came out of the blue, or rather, out of the murky February gloom. I needed sunshine and warmth, but holidays were a distant mirage (or possibly a hypothermia-induced hallucination).

When you’re a writer, you can always escape into your imagination. I wanted pampering, and spa treatments, and oranges picked fresh from the tree. The nearest I could manage was turning up the central heating, switching on the SAD light, and getting down to work. You can read a short extract from  His Majesty’s Secret Passion at http://bit.ly/1BBzb8L, and find out more at http://amzn.to/1DF99Dv.

I really enjoyed creating Sara and Leo’s passion in the sun. As a result, I’ve never written a book so quickly. It was a shame to type “The End”, so when my Beta reader asked me what I thought would happen to King Leo’s personal assistant Krisia in her challenging new job, I had a flash of inspiration.  I’d use this book as a springboard for others. And so the Princes of Kharova series was born.

Holding Out For A Hero

In His Majesty’s Secret Passion, career-woman Sara and Leo, King of Kharova, develop a successful working relationship, and turn their emotional fireworks into a co-ordinated display. Krisia the PA is promoted out of the king’s life, disappearing to sort out the chaotic paper-trails left by Leo’s charismatic younger brother, Prince Athan. Their story forms the basis of Her Royal Risk, which will be published later this year.

Looking Forward To The Past

Before putting finger to keyboard to start writing His Majesty’s Secret Passion, I’d filled out character sheets for both Sara and Leo.  These catalogue every snippet of information about my characters, from their physical appearance, to their position in the family birth order (If you’d like a copy of these useful forms, email me at christinahollis(at)hotmail.co,uk with the words Character Sheet in the subject line).

Using Scrivener (you can read more about that at http://bit.ly/1sWLNUs) I created a central store of these completed character sheets, together with timelines, and the images and notes collected while I worked. This meant I could keep tabs on my characters appearances—both physical, and where they pop up in the story. It makes checking continuity easy.

King Leo wants to modernize his country, the fictional Kharova, which is still suffering from the fall-out of a family rift generations before.  I drew up a family tree based on this, then went back to His Majesty’s Secret Passion and copied every snippet of information about Krisia and King Leo’s younger brother Prince Athan into a new character spreadsheet. Then I pasted in all the details about Sara and Leo too, which gave me the basis of a series bible. This helped me keep track of everyone’s appearance, their likes and dislikes, friends, relationships, and their respective timelines. This was important, as the events in some of the four books overlap.

Beginning, Middle And Happy-Ever-After...

At this point I decided the mending of a broken family would be the overarching theme for my series. Each novel in the Princes Of Kharova series is a complete romance in its own right. Leo, his brother, sister and a pretender to the throne of Kharova each have a book to themselves. While they’re involved in finding their soul mate, there are hints of what is to come for the whole family. In the same way, their country of Kharova moves from war to peace.

...And After...

I loved writing the Princes of Kharova  series, but it would have been a lot easier to commit to writing a series from the start. When I wrote His Majesty’s Secret Passion, I never expected Leo’s sister, Princess Maia, and rebel leader Mihail Dukagjini to come into contact. They had other ideas, and in Heart Of A Hostage (Book Three), they have a torrid affair. It’s never a good idea to have the names of characters begin with the same letter—there are twenty-five other letters to choose from, after all!—but it’s too late now for Maia and Mihail. And “Dukagjini” is a great surname for a minor character, but a hero shouldn’t be saddled with such a tongue-twister.

Have you written a series? Did you find it harder to say goodbye to characters when they’d appeared in more than one of your books?

A comment picked at random after 10th February will win a copy of His Majesty’s Secret Passion.

About Christina

Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women–when she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at http://www.christinahollis.com. Her current release, His Majesty's Secret Passion, is published by Wild Rose Press on 4th February, and is available from http://amzn.to/1DF99Dv (UK) and http://bit.ly/1ujX5zc (US)

Thank you so much for this informative blog post, Christina.

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Romance AND Suspense with Vonnie Hughes

Today we welcome Vonnie Hughes - all the way from the Antipodes. Vonnie was born in New Zealand and now lives in Australia.

As a child she won several writing competitions. She won a pony once but her parents encouraged her to take the substitute prize. After all, there’s not a lot of room in utopian suburbia for a pony. 

After attending teachers’ training college where they encouraged her writing, Vonnie began writing in earnest – poetry and short stories mainly. Now she writes novels and novellas in the Regency and contemporary suspense genres. She will, she says, probably write until the day she dies. Like many writers, some days she hates the whole process, but just cannot let it go.

I asked Vonnie a few questions:

I believe you haven’t always been a career writer. Can you tell our readers what brought about the change in your career?

I’ve always been a writer, just not a full-time writer. As a seven year old I won a writing contest to name a pony and I’ve been writing ever since. At first it was mainly articles and poetry. In my early fifties when I became a self-employed researcher with a houseful of overseas students, I needed a break from real life and began to write Regencies. As the Regency market has become more and more crowded, my stories are seguing more into the Victorian era. (I’ve been reading in that era since I was eleven years old and I love the sense of order and responsibility). But my preference is for writing contemporary suspense novels where I can indulge my love of convoluted plots and forensic clues.

I see from your website that you’re a ‘panster’. How does this work in conjunction with writing suspense? Don’t you need to know beforehand where your story is going?As for being a pantser and knowing where my plots are going – I think about my books for some weeks. Then I do a very small outline of the story generally, about five or six sentences. But the real planning comes from the characterisation. I spend a lot of time working out the characters’ backgrounds, motives and the likely consequences of their behaviour. Then I jump into writing the book. But I never do chapter plans or story arcs. Just go where it leads me.

Writing any period novel must entail considerable research. Is it something you enjoy and do you have any methodology?

As for the research for my historicals, I have to admit I have a LOT of hard files which I’ve compiled over the years. They contain things like bridge building in Britain, the slums near the Thames, maps of old roads etc. Also I belong to Beaumonde, a chapter of the Romance Writers of America and their archives are amazing.

Do you have a typical day?

I have no typical writing day. I write every day, but sometimes for no more than an hour. Sometimes I get restless and bored so I relax by walk/jogging with the dog, going to the gym and reading, reading, reading.

Innocent Hostage was published in December 2014. Is its successor in the pipeline?

At present, although I am part way through another New Zealand set book about a negotiator with one of the Armed Offenders’ squads, I also got started on an idea put forward by The Wild Rose Press about a mythical town in Maine called Lobster Cove. Since I’m not American I had to do some intensive research.  At the request of the Carmichael family’s accountants, their son takes over a lobster packaging business to investigate the reasons behind a consistent drain on the company resources. At the same time he is coming to terms with the fact that he is adopted and that at least one of his natural parents comes from the little town of Lobster Cove.

Innocent Hostage is published by The Wild Rose Press in both paperback and e-book form. In an Alice in Wonderland world where everything is tipped upside down and every value questioned, how do you save the innocent? Two years ago, Breck Marchant handed his son, Kit, over to his ex-wife, Tania, even though it tore him apart. She knows all about kids. Thanks to his own upbringing, he hasn’t a clue. But when the boy is held hostage, Breck steps up to the plate.

Links:

Website:  www.vonniehughes.com

Blog:

Amazon:

Facebook:

It's been lovely talking to you, Vonnie. Thank you. 

The RNA Blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest and Natalie Kleinman.

If you would like to write about the craft of writing or perhaps be interviewed about your writing life please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com