Plotting a Series . . . Like Riding the Tiger
When I decided to pull the original manuscript of Dark Rainbow's End into thirds, I thought I was a little nuts. I remember the day pretty well. I'd been rejected by pretty much every publishing company on the planet and the last one stung a little bit. A four hundred page book they said they thought was a little rushed. Rushed? How could four hundred pages of anything be rushed? Anyway, after I was done with my pout, I opened the file and started to skim through. As I skimmed a crazy idea began to wiggle its way to the forefront of my brain. Maybe they were right? So, I opened three blank word files, named them very cleverly: "book 1," "book 2," and "book 3" and ripped the manuscript into thirds. Then I saved the original file the way it always was and took a close look at the twenty-seven thousand words and change that I had of book one. It was always a matter, for the trilogy, of filling in the blanks. I knew where the story was headed. I knew...