How can I shift my brain from thinking about 'short-story writing' into 'world-spanning book series' writing?

Question

I am currently about half-way into my novel. I have 6 books planned and this is the farthest I've ever gotten with a novel before. My usual writing style before was short stories and poetry. So this is a very new thing for me, spanning an entire world and story over so many books has been incredibly fun and not without its challenges.

Funnily enough, getting started was really easy. I created a world, drew a world-map, and then the story just flowed. I have everything plotted out (in pencil, I'm always up for revisions and being flexible with what works as I go). But now I am 50,000 words into the first book and I just feel as though I've ran out of steam. I'm trying really hard not to rush things (like my old short-story writing brain wants to do) but I'm struggling to know where to go now.

I'm unsure if it's best to go back trough everything and 'pad it out' to slow things down. Or to add even more side stories/side characters and events/world building that contribute to the flow of the story.

I'm open to any and all advice or ideas on this if you've also experienced something similar. I've noticed my writing has slowed down significantly because of this loss of steam and I don't want to fully lose momentum.

Edit: apologies, I don't think I was clear enough. I feel I've ran out of steam for this 1st book, the story for the next books is embedded into a much wider and complex world that is yet to unfold.

Answer 1

Finish the First Draft

Imagining what could be is great fun. We all have multi-book epics in our minds (probably several), but 'could be' is not words on a page.

You are 50,000 words into a First Draft. Your goal should be to get to the end. Do not edit, or re-construct your story at this phase – unless you are starting over with a new First Draft.

A First Draft does not need 'padding' or even pacing. It needs a climax and resolution. It needs a whole story: beginning, middle, end.

Create or Edit, not both at the same time

Creation is a certain mindset. We want to be open to ideas, to all possibilities. Again it is fun to imagine what 'could be'. All roads are available. This is the mindset of the First Draft, or 'plotting' phase.

Editing is the opposite mindset. We want to be critical of the ideas on the page. We need to fix what is there, build transition and fill-in the missing parts. We need to make the character's decisions coherent and meaningful, by leaning-in to the intended (or emergent) themes, and remove all the stuff that doesn't support it. Merge characters, clarify (or re-assign) their individual motivations, and start paying attention to the flow of the story so it makes sense when reading from start to finish.

Creation and Editing are NOT the same goals. Being human we can't turn on and off our mental states, but recognizing which phase of the writing process we are currently working on helps to define what we should be doing.

First Draft – whee, no rules, just write.
Second Draft – let's make this mess make sense. Some creativity but only in service to finding solutions to problems on the page.
Final Draft – narrative voice, language, word-choices. Pure editing, and no new story elements.

If you feel the urge to create, or the urge to edit, go ahead and do what you feel is right. The goal is not to force yourself to keep dumping words on paper (nanowrimo and binge-writing sessions do that). The goal is to not un-do the work you have already done. Don't create when you should be editing; don't edit when you should be creating.

Permission to quit

If it needs to be explicitly stated, you always have permission to not finish, and do something else instead.

You can put the draft away, and maybe come back to it later.

Answer 2

Going from short stories to a six-volume series is a large step.

My own experience is that my stories gradually grew longer over the course of multiple works, from the first three-page short to longer short stories to novellas to my first novel.

My advice would be to not force your story to be longer than it is. Padding a story with irrelevant side stories or worldbuilding is never a good idea, because your story will lose focus and become slow and potentially bore your readers. Every story should be as long as it needs to be. Do not abbreviate a story that requires 150,000 words to 80,000, and do not extend a story that is finished after 50,000 words to six volumes. Accept that this story might be a novella or a short novel.

Coming up with story ideas that are complex enough to require a novel or even a series to tell it is a learning process. Just like the first essays you write in school are half a page long and you slowly build the mental ability to compose longer and longer texts until at the end of uni you write a master's thesis of 50 or 80 pages, learning to think stories of novel-length takes some practice for most of us. Give yourself this time, if you need it.

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What you can do to extend your current idea (not pad it), is to abandon your current draft and go back to the planning stage. Embed your current story in a larger narrative. Either by thinking about what else will have happened before or after the events you currently narrate to your protagonist(s). Or by thinking about the context in which those events take place and widening your focus to include other events that take place at the same time and that somehow relate to your current storyline.

Examples:

1. The story of one detective solving one crime can be extended to on detective solving a series of crimes, his or her private life, how they became a detective, why they eventually stopped being a detective, what they did afterwards, and so on.
2. The story of one detective solving one crime can be extended to the portrait of a whole police station, narrating everything that happens there.

So what you do is you add multi-dimensional complexity to a previously one-dimensional, linear plot.

Answer 3

Maybe you don't have a six book series; maybe you have a six story trilogy.

My suggestion would be to look at the three act structure (or 8 part structure derived from it; see my answer here: Is it a problem if the antagonist appears later in the novel?), and identify those parts in your current story.

Those 8 parts should be roughly equal in length; if they are not, they need more work to be satisfying to the reader. That may lengthen your work somewhat. If you have missed one or more of the eight parts; create them -- you have a pacing problem.

Otherwise, perhaps accept your work as it is, and find a way to transition (in the same book, because 50K words is definitely not a novel) to a second part or main character.

Answer 4

Don't worry so much about word count to start with. Every story has a certain amount of complexity, and the more complex it is, the longer the path through it will naturally be. Then that gets multiplied by the level of detail. Don't feel that you need to add more detail just to get the word count up. That is how one becomes a nominee for the Bulwer-Lytton Bad Fiction Award... Detail should be relevant and interesting. It should tell the reader things they need or want to know, without drowning them in irrelevancy.

As for the transition from short stories to longer ones: All longer stories are made up of shorter pieces. You can find lots of standard models for this. A five-act play, or a three-act play for example are templates people have found where the pacing and structure is easy to work with.

It doesn't have to be a given though. Especially for a book where you don't have to worry so much about the time and expense of scene changes.

You've already mentally divided your massive story into six, separate-but-related stories for your planned book set.

Now you divide your first book the same way. Think of it as a series of short stories, but involving the same characters and each of them ratcheting the overarching plot forward a notch. Each one can be as short or long as its complexity requires. Put callbacks to previous stories, and foreshadowing of what you have planned for future stories in where it makes sense.

Once you have it divided into subplots, you can work on the different pieces in any order. If you get stuck on one part of the story, go and work on a different area for a while. Your lightweight boundaries between sections will compartmentalize it enough that you can make changes to one area without having to completely rewrite everything, and then you insert the ties between sections carefully and deliberately to avoid conflicts and contradictions. If need be, keep notes about these ties and what sections of the story they affect indexed so that you can quickly refresh your memory about what major themes and plots you need to be tying into your sub-stories. How much of that you will need depends on your personal memory ability and the complexity of your plot. Don't overdo it, but make sure you don't forget things either.

Note that I'm a programmer by trade, so I'm rather used to thinking about things piecewise like this and making implicit things explicit. So this approach works very well for me. If your brain works differently then there are many, many different approaches for how to organize both the story itself and your approach toward creating it. So experiment until you find one that works for you.

Answer 5

Who said 50,000 words is too few for a novel, by itself or as part of a series?

I don't recommend 'padding…' but how sure are either that everything has been explained clearly, and that the plot is complete?

Without in any way questioning your plots or expositions, how clear is it that it would not be appropriate to refer to - at least, hint about - the wider world yet to unfold?

Such generalities aside, will you say how 'world spanning…' comes into this?

Of course 'short-story…' and 'book series…' writing are different, but isn't 'world-spanning…' purely about the subject, not the genre?