For today's tip, I want to return to the subject of characterisation. Specifically that of the protagonist and the antagonist.
First of all, a quick reminder of which is which.
In its most basic terms, the protagonist is the character that the reader is supposed to be aligned with. That doesn't mean they are a good person, it just means that in that scene, this is the character whose intentions will drive the narrative forward. 
The antagonist is the person that is trying to prevent that. Again, that doesn't mean they are a bad person.

This definition means individuals can switch roles, depending on the stage of the story, the point of view of different characters, and what the writer wants the reader to feel at that time. 
For example, in Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs, at the beginning of the book/film, when we first meet Dr Hannibal Lecter, the young FBI Agent Clarice Starling is the protagonist, as she attempts to catch the serial killer Buffalo Bill. Lecter is arguably just there to help her. 
As the story unfolds, and Lecter escapes, he becomes the antagonist - everyone is desperate to catch the deadly killer. Yet at times during the blood-soaked second half of the film, our view of Lecter switches between him as the protagonist and him as the antagonist. Lecter is NOT a good person, yet we clearly see his goals and desires, which makes him the protagonist in those scenes, with the FBI (the good guys) becoming the antagonists as they seek to stop him.

In another example, Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode IV (ignore his earlier incarnation as Anakin Skywalker for now) is clearly the villain of the film, whilst Luke Skywalker is the good guy.
So for much of the film, Skywalker is the protagonist - we see him trying to rescue the princess etc, whilst Vader seeks to stop him, and is therefore the antagonist. But at times during the film, we see Vader's goal - to get the death star up and running, whilst Skywalker seeks to thwart him. In those scenes, Vader is the protagonist driving the story, whilst Skywalker and friends are the antagonists.

The point I'm making, is that protagonists and antagonists are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, when drawing our characters, it makes sense to treat them the same, and ask the same questions of each. It doesn't matter if they are the villain or the hero, that's just detail. The process of planning them should be the same.

So to write a strong pro/antagonist, you need to answer the following questions. How much of this planning you eventually choose to share with the reader depends on the story you wish to tell.
Who are they?
To write them convincingly, you need to know them. You need to have thought about what sort of person they are, and ideally have an image of them in your mind's eye (note, I don't necessarily mean a physical representation, just that feeling you get towards a person when you've got know them).
What is their goal?
Everything we do leads to some sort of goal. That goal can be grand in scope (rescue the princess or prove to the emperor that you're the right person to get the death star up and running) or tiny and inconsequential (switching TV channels without waking the cat on your lap).
Why are they doing this?
What is their motivation? Again, this varies in scope. It could be large and complex (you want to rescue the galaxy from the clutches of evil or you believe that it is your destiny to rule the galaxy as you see fit) or simple (Hollyoaks has just come on the TV, but the remote is over the far side of the room.)

The answers to these three questions will help you craft your character and determine how they will do what they do, how determined they are, and how well they will deal with adversity. Whether they are the protagonist or antagonist at a particular point in time depends entirely on the situation in which you place them, and how you wish the reader to perceive them. 

One final thought.
This is a very different question, but may overlap with this topic.
Will there be a big event that needs foreshadowing? Even for those of us who indulge in minimal planning, keeping an eye on the bigger picture and potential future events can help make certain that when those significant events occur, our characters have been written such that their behaviour is realistic.
Returning to Star Wars, George Lucas had the benefit of knowing the fate of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, from the original trilogy of films (episodes IV to VI) when, years later, he started writing the character arc for Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy (episodes I to III). He was able to seed lots of little hints about future events in the prequels.
However, when he first conceived the idea of Star Wars in the mid-seventies, he didn't necessarily believe that it would become a smash hit and that he'd ever get the chance to film the vague ideas he had for sequels. Which is why there is an uncomfortable amount of sexual tension between Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the first film. The woman it is revealed in later films is his twin sister...  

What are your thoughts on the protagonists and antagonists? Are they two sides of the same coin? Should they be treated in the same way? Feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul

For this week's gues blog post, I am very excited to introduce Candy Denman. Candy is not only a novelist, but has also written TV scripts and therefore has a special insight into characterisation.
Candy writes a series of crime novels about forensic physician and part-time GP, Dr Callie Hughes. The first in the series is Dead Pretty​ and can be bought from Amazon. 
It is not unusual for Callie to see a dead body, but this time, the young woman’s corpse rings alarm bells. Her medical knowledge gives her unique insight into the killer, but convincing the police is a challenge. 

Candy's Writing Tip
When writing both scripts and novels, getting the ‘voice’ of a character is critical. Just as the reader/viewer has to believe in the story, it is just as important that they believe in the characters and what they are saying or how they are acting. Once the reader loses that suspension of disbelief, they lose interest in the story.
So how can a writer make sure they get the voice right and that they make the different characters sound sufficiently different? This isn’t about just giving them different accents, it’s more about making them distinct from each other.
When I write the back story and character traits for each character, I find it helpful to do it in the first person, so that each character describes themselves to me and give me their own potted history.
It might sound bonkers, but it works.
I’m a young lad, not bad, but I don’t take any shit, know what I mean? I didn’t mean to do it, it just sort of happened.
I’m not complaining, not really. I haven’t had an easy life, but nothing is as hard as this being on your own.  Sometimes I might not see anyone for weeks in a row and I find myself talking to my cat, what was her name? Tiddles. That’s right.  My long gone, dead cat Tiddles.
I do about half a page on each, depending on how big a character they are in the story and save them for reference. This is particularly important if you are writing a series, to make sure you get them right each time. A character can develop and change in time, depending on what has happened to them, but their overall voice will remain the same.
(c) 2021 Candy Denman

Candy trained as a nurse, and worked in the NHS almost all her life, until managing recently to disengage herself in order to become a full-time crime writer. She has also written a large number of scripts for such highly-acclaimed TV series as The Bill and Heartbeat which gave her the idea to write a crime series that also includes medical stories.
You can learn more about Candy by visiting her website www.candydenman.co.uk​ or Facebook Page and by following her on Twitter @CrimeCandy or Instagram @CandyDenman.

Welcome to this week's #TuesdayTip. 
Today, I am delighted to welcome Laraine Stephens as a guest blogger.
I am a writer of contemporary police procedurals, so I am especially excited to feature a writer of historical crime fiction.
Laraine lives in Beaumaris, a bayside suburb of Melbourne, Australia. After a career as a teacher-librarian and Head of Library, she decided to turn her hand to the craft of crime writing. She is a member of Writers Victoria, Sisters in Crime (Australia), the Australian Crime Writers’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association of the UK.
Laraine’s debut novel, The Death Mask Murders, is the first in the Reggie da Costa Mysteries series. It was published by Level Best Books in June 2021. Her second book, A Dose of Death, is due out in May 2022.
​

Laraine's #TuesdayTip
CREATING AN HISTORICAL SETTING
If you are writing an historical novel, it is important to create an authentic and accurate depiction of the period you have chosen. A writer should evoke a sense of a particular time and place, weaving information seamlessly into the narrative and dialogue. 
In researching The Death Mask Murders, set in Melbourne in 1918, I used digitised newspapers from the time, which were available through the National Library of Australia’s archive, Trove (free). In the United Kingdom, there is, for example, the British Newspaper Archive (pay) and in the United States, the Newspaper Archive (pay). 
From these sources, you can gain a wealth of information on the social, political and economic circumstances of the time, including specific events. Another advantage of using digitised newspapers is discovering whether a word or expression was in common use at the time. For example, when was ‘meal ticket’, ‘serial killer’, ‘dodge a bullet’, ‘tuxedo’ or ‘boyfriend’ (in the romantic sense) first used? Advertisements and even the Classifieds will provide information on subjects as diverse as stage shows, entertainment, cars, prices, product brands and clothing. Without this resource, Reggie da Costa, The Argus’s senior crime reporter, in The Death Mask Murders, would never have worn his impeccably cut linen suit, high-collared cream shirt, and green striped tie from Wallace, Buck and Goodes of Queens Walk. Nor would he have driven a 1917 Dodge Roadster, a flashy, two-seater automobile with a wooden steering wheel, black paintwork, and shiny large headlamps, which was his pride and joy. 
I finish with a word of warning. When it comes to writing, historical background and detail should never overwhelm the plot. Our readers buy novels with the expectation that they will enjoy a cracking, good story, rather than drowning in a reservoir of information.
(c) Laraine Stephens 2021.
​

Laraine Stephens is a writer of historical crime fiction. Her novels are set in Melbourne, Australia in the early years of the twentieth century. Her debut novel, The Death Mask Murders, is available from Amazon
You can learn more about Laraine by visiting her Website or Facebook Page.

One of the fun things about writing a series is revisiting characters that you've written about before.
It's also one of the reasons that readers will return to an author (and why publishers love a series!). I have a number of favourite authors whose latest novels will always find their way into my shopping cart. In part, it's because they've proven to me in the past that they can tell a good story, but I am also keen to check in and see how my 'friends' are doing in their latest outing.
It's natural for a writer of a named series to assume that the person the series are named after is the one that readers will connect with the most and to expend the most creative effort in crafting this character. But that isn't always the case. I've written before about M.W. Craven's Washington Poe series - Poe is a terrific character, but there are a large number of readers for whom the most enjoyable parts of the books are those featuring his sidekick Tilly Bradshaw.
So for that reason, it's worth putting some thought into secondary characters beyond the main protagonist(s).

These recurring characters can be broadly divided into two groups.
Those that appear in each book and those that appear infrequently, when I need them.
Characters in every book.
For my DCI Warren Jones series, I have a regular cast of characters that appear in pretty much every book. Warren and his team at Middlesbury CID and his immediate family are series staples. Therefore, it's worth putting some time into these characters. Don't simply make them a foil for your lead, give them personalities and a life of their own.
It is normal for a lead character to evolve and change over time. The events in one book may have lasting repercussions for example. But don't forget to consider others. I've written before (Tuesday Tip 39) about how keeping notes on regular characters is important. They will age, they will go through life changes and given that they are probably working alongside the lead during the crises that they face, they too will be impacted by traumatic events. 
Infrequent characters.
As my series has progressed, I also have a few regulars that crop up periodically. For example, I have a civilian Digital Forensics specialist who pops up whenever they need a laptop or a phone unlocking. Pete Robertson typically only has a few lines, and in some books is sometimes only referenced, but over the series we learn nuggets about him. For example, he is extremely tall and thin - almost as though he has been stretched - yet he somehow squeezes into a tiny office without ever knocking equipment flying. We find out in passing that he is gay. It's not really part of a story, but it makes him a little more rounded; maybe it will be important one day, maybe it won't.
In one of the novellas, At First Glance, I needed an officer of similar rank to Warren working on the drugs squad. Lo and behold, I suddenly found I needed him again a couple of books later. He'll be crucial in my two next books, so I now know his family background.
In next summer's book (number eight), I bring back a character that hasn't been seen since book two, about seven years previously. It wasn't a conscious plan, I just realised as I was writing a scene that the as-yet-unnamed officer delivering a briefing played a similar role to a junior officer that worked with the team in the earlier book. I went back to the original manuscript and found their name. Given the number of years that had passed, I decided she was due a promotion and was now a specialist with additional expertise. As a bonus, I didn't have to think up another new name!
The pitfalls of regular characters.
Something that writers need to think about when bringing somebody back is how much space to devote to reminding readers who they are, or introducing them to new readers. It can be a bit of a balancing act.
Similarly, will their appearance potentially spoil earlier books in the series? A few posts back (Tuesday Tip 52) I wrote about how there is always the risk that big plot developments in earlier books can lose their impact if their resolution is referenced in later books. Many readers new to a series read them out of sequence, so if PC Blogs is very clearly alive in book seven, they obviously survived being stabbed in book five. Consequently, you may wish to reconsider if you want to bring back an infrequently used character if it robs that earlier story of its tension.
Bringing back a villain or previous suspect might be even more dangerous. If character X is a key murder suspect throughout book four, then having them out and about in next year's book indicates that they were probably a red herring in book 4!  

Do you have any favourite recurring series characters?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until we meet again,
best wishes, Paul.

Easter egg:
1. an artificial chocolate egg or decorated hard-boiled egg given at Easter.
2. an unexpected or undocumented feature in a piece of computer software or on a DVD, included as a joke or a bonus.
Definition from Oxford Languages.
The term Easter Egg was first used to describe a hidden message in a 1979 Atari video game. Since then its usage has expanded somewhat, and here I am going to extend it further to series novels and broaden the scope of the original meaning.
Why should you consider including them?
One of the joys of reading a series of novels is the sense of familiarity that they evoke. Familiar characters, well-known locations, and even in-jokes, can make a reader's return to your fictional world all the more rewarding. I left university over twenty years ago. In the intervening years, I have kept contact with a handful of good friends and former flatmates and we have done our best to try and meet up for a weekend at least once a year. In that time we've moved on: marriages, kids, grey hair and proper grown-up jobs, yet when we get together it's as if we are all in our early twenties again. Old jokes resurface, well-worn anecdotes and otherwise forgotten stories come back and I feel a comforting warmth. Over the years, partners that didn't know us back then have joined us and I often wonder what they must think. I know that my fiancée sees a side of me that she doesn't witness in our daily existence, and I imagine it is the same for the others.
I feel the same when the latest book in a favourite series is released and I spot the little asides and Easter eggs that the author has included.
So here are some of the reasons it's worth having them.
It keeps readers returning.
As much as I enjoy a good standalone with new characters to get to know, I also like revisiting old friends. Are there character quirks that your readers will look out for, such as favourite music? Is there a regular antagonist that your character will butt heads with? Is there something that they will do that they shouldn't? In Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series, one of the series regulars, Win, will usually do or say something that again has you questioning if he is actually a psychopath, even if he is a 'good guy'. I look forward to seeing what he'll do in each new novel. Successful TV series that last for many seasons often use these as hooks to retain their viewers' loyalty.
It makes your readers feel part of the 'club'.  
The inclusion of a few regular tropes can make loyal readers feel like they are privy to a small secret. Somebody reading one of my DCI Warren Jones books for the first time may find Warren's exasperation over his colleagues' avoidance of using the honesty jar to pay for their communal coffee an amusing aside. Those who have followed the series from the start will know to look out for that scene, hopefully remembering it from different books and looking forward to seeing how I include it this time.
It helps remind readers what they are reading.
There are several dozen police procedurals released every year. All are different, but all have undoubted similarities, especially if the writer tries to adhere to accuracy. The inclusion of these little vignettes can give the series its own unique identity.

• Spends time brooding on a balcony over-looking Los Angeles at night, listening to Jazz - that'll be Harry Bosch.
• Takes time out to have a pint and do The Times cryptic crossword - that'll be Morse.
• Carefully dismantles a sandwich or a burger to discard the salad - that'll be Warren Jones.    

It rewards rereading.
It can be a lot of fun going back to an earlier book in a series, and these little Easter eggs can provide little ah-ha moments as you spot something that you maybe skimmed past the first time, but which now has more resonance.
Material for a prequel or a short story.
Many authors have dabbled with prequels - going back to the early part of their main protagonist's career or life. This can provide a great opportunity to see the genesis of a character's quirks, or the start of an established tradition in your books. It's fun for the writer and fun for the reader.
Setting up future books or plot lines.
In one of my recent books, a long-established scene became part of the investigation. A variation on this scene had appeared in every book, and this novel was no different. It probably slipped under the radar for most readers, with regulars logging its expected appearance and moving on. Hopefully, they felt some recognition when they realised that I'd used it to smuggle in a plot point.


The pitfalls:
Easter eggs should be treats for the regular reader, but shouldn't exclude those new to the series.
Resist the urge to assume that everyone reading will be familiar with (or remember) previous references and hang a plot point on it. You risk people feeling confused and cheated if they can't work out how your detective realised that the text message supposedly sent from their colleague was a fake because they had used punctuation and their spelling was correct, when every other book had made a joke of their garbled communications.
Nobody likes to feel they aren't part of the club.
Despite our best efforts, I've no doubt that the partners of my university friends have at times felt bemused or even excluded slightly as we all roll around guffawing at some story that is really only funny if you were there. Try not to include too many in-jokes that will make new readers feel that they are missing something. The chances are it will diminish their pleasure and make it less likely that they read more in the series.
Don't try too hard to shoehorn them in.
There may be times that it is just not plausible for a regular scene to take place. There may be a highly amusing scene in every book where two characters go to ever increasing lengths to secure their favoured parking spot. But if this book is set away from the station, engineering the narrative so that this scene can appear may impact the book as a whole.


What are your views on Easter eggs? Do you have any good examples from favourite authors (no spoilers!)?
Feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul.    

If ever you decide that you fancy visiting some of my character DCI Warren Jones' favourite haunts - for example the ruined Middlesbury Abbey featured in Forgive Me Father or The University of Middle England that is central to The Last Straw - then I have some bad news for you.
None of them exist.
The north Hertfordshire market town of Middlesbury is entirely a product of my imagination.
In this week's #TuesdayTip, I want to discuss the pros and cons of setting your books in a fictional locale, or telling your tales in a real place.
For me, setting my books in an imaginary town was more a product of necessity than choice, having lived a fairly peripatetic lifestyle for the past quarter-century. After leaving Coventry where I was brought up to attend university, I have rarely lived anywhere for more than a couple of years at a time. I have worked at or attended universities in four different cities (on two continents), have lived in at least seven different counties and about ten different cities. If you think that makes me sound like some metropolitan sophisticate who can set his books in a host of different places, then you'd be wrong.
The problem is that I have never really lived anywhere long enough to absorb the feel of a place. Police officers intimately know their beat and if that beat exists in the real world then those that write them need to know it equally well. Even worse, some of their readers will also know that place and will let the author know if they screw up!
I would dearly love to have set my series in a real town. I greatly admire writers like Ian Rankin or Michael Connelly, whose depictions of Edinburgh and Los Angeles are so vivid one feels as though you are walking alongside Rebus or Bosch. A few weeks ago, I binge-read and reviewed Rachel Lynch's DI Kelly Porter series. Set in the Lake District, there is no faking Rachel's intimate knowledge of that part of Cumbria. MW Craven also writes about that area and his knowledge of the county shines through.
Unfortunately, at the time that I started writing the book that would eventually become The Last Straw, I was living in a small north Hertfordshire town chosen purely for its cheap rent and proximity to work. Good road and rail connections meant that my socialising was done in far more interesting places, such as Cambridge. Even were there anything of note in that perfectly pleasant, but desperately bland town, I never had the time to get to know it. Back then I was still a full-time teacher, and my weekends were spent either visiting friends and family in other cities, or installed in the local library trying to become a writer...
Therefore, I decided that Middlesbury had to be fictional.
Tip: if you locate your town geographically in the same place as a real town,  then you have some easy anchors. You can keep track of nearby transport links for consistency, Google Maps can calculate realistic travel times to other cities and you can even pinch some of the real location's demographic information etc if the town is similar to your imagined place.

What should you consider?
Advantages of a real place:
Readers love real-world locations. Whether they get a kick out of seeing somewhere they know really well on the page, or they enjoy escaping to somewhere they've never been but might one day visit, books intimately associated with a place can do very well. You may even persuade the tourist office to stock a few copies, and libraries and bookstores love a local author, or someone that writes about their hometown.
Furthermore, much of the hard work has been done for you! There are maps to plan your character's routes, real shops and landmarks that you can photograph to help you when writing a description. There are local legends and documented events that can stimulate your own stories.
The downside:
You need to do your research. Unless you set the book in a fictionalised version of that area (and make that explicit in the book's disclaimer), any errors that you make WILL be noticed and remarked upon!

Advantages of a fictional place:
Your town, your rules! One of the limitations of wedding your story to a real place is that you are stuck with what that location has to offer. When I wrote The Last Straw, I needed a small, regional university. The real-world location for Middlesbury didn't have one, and I didn't want to set it in the academic behemoth a couple of junctions up the M11, so the University of Middle England was born. Easy peasy.
Need a ruined medieval abbey attached to a priest's retirement home? Check.
A multiplex cinema? Yes.
A housing estate with a half-dozen tower blocks? OK.
A nice open common, that nevertheless has enough trees for somebody to be killed out of sight? Yup, Middlesbury has one of those.
The downside:
Keeping track of it and having to invent so much! I don't mind a bit of town planning, it can be quite fun, but it is also time consuming.
Tip; You can help yourself by using other places that you know well as a framework. The centre of Middlesbury, which I needed to properly lay out for The Common Enemy, is based on a small town I once lived in. The shop names and other details are different, but as I can picture that town if I close my eyes, I can always visualise Middlesbury if I need to.
Once you've written a few in the series, it's inevitable that you are going to need to start revisiting some of these locations, otherwise your town can become bigger than London!
Tip: Keep a file noting some of the key landmarks. It'll save you hours of trawling through previous manuscripts to find the correct spelling of the red light district (true story).
Of course you will also need to populate your imaginary town with imaginary businesses that have imaginary names - I wrote a previous article looking at how to name fictional businesses.

So what about a middle ground?
Some authors have taken the approach I use of placing a fictional town in a real location much further. Peter Robinson sets his DI Banks series in the Yorkshire Dales, referencing and even visiting real places, but seamlessly switching to fictional locales whenever he needs to. On the other hand, were one to use Kate Rhodes' excellent Alice Quentin series as a map of London it would probably end in disaster, with some significant cartographical liberties taken in the name of telling a good story (it's probably worth including a disclaimer if you choose to do this). Colin Dexter famously expanded the number of colleges that make up Oxford University, so that he can give Morse a really meaty case without sullying the name of such august institutions.

​So where do you stand? Do you want to set your books in a real place with all of its history and architecture and character to draw upon? Or do you want the freedom of a blank canvas and the opportunity to invent somewhere perfect for your story?
Feel free to share your thoughts either here or on social media.
Until next time, take care.
Paul

"When you introduce Character X for the first time, can you just remind readers about..."
So said an editorial note on my latest manuscript.
My editor was referring to a very significant occurrence that happened in an earlier story that still has repercussions several books later. To avoid spoilers it shall be referred to from herein  as 'the big event'.


My instinct, like a lot of writers, is to clutch my secrets close to my chest. I spend a lot of time working out exactly how and when to make key revelations in my novels. Like many authors I despair at Amazon's steadfast refusal to takedown, edit, or even flag with a spoiler tag, instances where the reviewer has literally given away the big twist in the book. I want the reader to be surprised, and so naturally, I'm not going to write on the blurb "don't worry folks, it all comes right in the end" or "heads-up people, get the tissues ready, because your favourite character isn't going to make it past chapter 52!". Feedback from readers suggests that 'the big event' took them by surprise, and evoked the emotions that I wanted from them. Good!


The problem of course is that I write a series and all books set after 'the big event' are impacted by it. The status quo changed in a way that can't be undone. In a TV show, it is increasingly common for there to be a sixty-second recap before the opening credits. That's fine if your audience watches each episode in sequence and doesn't miss one. In these days of catch-up and on-demand, that's pretty much the norm now. The recap won't spoil anything that has happened in previous episodes, as you've already seen them. Rather it is an aide memoire.
But books aren't like that. For everyone following your books as they are released, or who decides to seek out book 1 & 2 in the series before diving into book 3 which they bought as it was on sale, there are readers who bought that reduced copy of book 3 and started reading it immediately.


And there in lies every writer's dilemma. How do I refresh the memories of previous readers of my series about 'the big event' - which they may have read several years ago - without ruining 'the big event' for those reading out of sequence, who might then decide to go back and read the book it actually happened in?


This exact situation occurred to me recently for a different 'big event'. For this summer's book, I enlisted another beta reader. When I sent them the manuscript for Warren Jones 7, they happened to be partway through reading Warren Jones 6, A Price to Pay, which had just come out in paperback. Keen to help out, they immediately put aside book 6, and started book 7. Unfortunately, they had stopped book 6 whilst the characters were facing a crisis that could have gone either way. It's pretty clear early on in book 7 how that crisis was resolved. I felt a little sad that somebody willing to take the time to help out with a series they enjoy was inadvertently denied a small part of that enjoyment.
Ultimately, I value all of my readers. Whether they have been with me for ten books since 2014, or they just downloaded a copy of whatever was on sale that week, willing to try a new author, I want to serve them both.
So, if you are a series writer, you need to consider how to address this.
How much detail will you include in later books? The presence or absence of a character in future books will inevitably hint at the outcome of any mortal situation that you place them in in any earlier books. How will you deal with that? Do you just gloss over it and never mention it? You can do that with a minor character, but it will seem strange to loyal readers if a major character is bumped off in book 6 and then apparently written out of history, never to be mentioned again. And I dare say that if a reader joins the series at book 7 and enjoys it so much they decide to buy your back-catalogue, they are gong to be somewhat confused also.
Sometimes, you can't avoid the elephant in the room, but you don't have to describe exactly what happened, or even when. You don't have to say,
"The team still missed Beauregard. His violent stabbing at the hands of Mrs Blenkinsopp, the unlikely serial killer who terrorised the neighbourhood six months ago, had been unexpected; coming as it did at what they thought was the end of the investigation, the man she successfully framed behind bars, lulling Beauregard into a false sense of security..."
You have well and truly spoiled whatever book was set 6 months ago.
Instead, keep it vague.
"The loss of Beau remained raw, the team still mourning him."
All that tells you is that he was (probably) killed relatively recently. It could have been in the previous book, or the one before it. It may have happened at the start or the end, and the circumstances are yet to be discovered by new readers. Hopefully, this simply adds a little frisson of foreshadowing. Inevitably, every time poor Beauregard is placed in danger in earlier books some readers will now wonder is this it? But that anticipation might be a good thing. For returning readers, this is hopefully just a trigger to remind them why Beauregard has yet to make an appearance five chapters in.


So accept that you will need to risk ruining the surprise sometimes. It is unfortunate, but with careful writing you can still give readers new and old the experience that they deserve.
Do you write a series? How have you dealt with on-going storylines?
Feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul

Should your characters age as a series progresses?
For those of us writing a character over a number of years, this is a question that we eventually have to grapple with. Do you let your main character become older (and perhaps wiser!) as the years go by, or do you keep them in a state of perpetual agelessness, as the world changes around them?
It may seem like a bit of an ambitious question early in your career, but it's one that plenty of authors have been forced to consider. Some of my favourite authors have now been writing their protagonists for over twenty years. Since their books are typically set roughly in the time-period that they are published, the forty-something detective they introduced in the series debut will now be in their sixties, potentially stretching the bounds of credibility.


Aging characters realistically can have its advantages though - for example, we see them evolve, hopefully pulling readers along with them as they buy the next book, in part to see how life is treating their literary friends. It can also open up story possibilities. How do they feel about milestone birthdays or retirement? Are they the same person they were ten years ago?


And don't forget your secondary characters - it would seem a bit strange if your main protagonist ages, but their partner or co-workers don't. That can also generate plot-points. Impending retirement of a colleague is a potential way to refresh your series' line-up without bumping people off. If they have kids at the start of the series, have those children flown the nest by book eight? How do they feel about that?


So how have others dealt with this conundrum?
1) Don't age them!Lee Child's behemoth, Jack Reacher, was born in on the 29th October 1960; the latest novel, The Sentinel, was published in 2020 and is clearly set roughly in that time-period. Child recently handed over writing duties to his younger brother, Andrew, with the aim that the character would be updated somewhat for more modern times and continue for a good few more years.
Reacher is a remarkable physical specimen, but clearly even he will struggle to take on multiple opponents simultaneously as he enters his seventh or even eighth decade. So in recent years, his ageing appears to have all but stopped. He is more grizzled and experienced than the 36-year-old that left the US Army shortly prior to The Killing Floor, but he now appears to be an indeterminate forty-fifty years old in my mind.


Patricia Cornwell has followed a similar route with her Kay Scarpetta series. Comparing her apparent age with other characters in the series who appear to get older in real-time, it's clear that Scarpetta found the fountain of youth sometime around her mid-forties.


2) Let 'em get older!Michael Connelly started writing his Hieronymus 'Harry' Bosch novels in the nineties. Before joining the LAPD, Bosch served in Vietnam and we know from the books that he was born in about 1950. The recent TV series (worth the subscription to Amazon Prime on its own!), did a soft-reboot so that he fought in the Gulf War, making him late-forties. But in the books, he is now clearly well into his sixties. Typically, he would have aged-out by now, but Connelly decided to have him retire and later books see him working variously as a private investigator or a reserve officer working cases free-lance for the police.
Doubtless this never crossed Connelly's mind when he first started writing Bosch thirty years ago, but it really works well. 


3) Fudge it!Ian Rankin's DI John Rebus first appeared in 1987. His date of birth is given in the novels as 1947. At first, Rankin had Rebus ageing in real-time but by 2007's Exit Music, it became apparent that he had reached retirement age. Rankin originally intended Rebus' long-term colleague Siobhan Clarke to take over, perhaps with Rebus helping out. But it was suggested to him that there was no law that said he had to continue ageing him realistically, so he brought him back in 2012.
On paper, Rebus is 73 now, but in Rankin's mind he is mid-sixties. The world around him, including his beloved Edinburgh, have continued to evolve, but Rebus has largely stopped ageing. Unlike Jack Reacher however, Rebus' years of neglecting his health has caught up with him. He is clearly much older than in the first books and his health has deteriorated recently, but Rankin has no plans to stop writing him, so this hybrid ageing/agelessness will likely continue.

4) Do the Time Warp
Another possibility is to go back in time and revisit their early career. Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect TV series was ground-breaking. Her character Jane Tennison retired at the end of the series run. Assuming that the character was roughly the same age as the actor that played her, Helen Mirren, she would be in her seventies now. La Plante recently went back in time to look at Tennison's early years in the 1970s. 
Mark Billingham, creator of the popular Tom Thorne, decided to go back to the early nineties in Cry Baby. Although this wasn't written as a way of addressing Thorne's advancing years, if readers enjoy the book it gives Mark a potential direction in years to come.



DCI Warren Jones.
Loathe as I am to compare myself to any of the writers listed above, I have had to make decisions regarding Warren Jones and other regulars in my books. Next spring will be the tenth anniversary of when I first set fingers to keyboard on the Warren Jones series.
That first novel, The Last Straw, was set in the summer of 2011. Next summer's book is in late 2016, book 8 is likely to be spring 2018. I decided from the start to age Warren in real-time. He is about three years older than me, born on January 3rd 1974 (which you can calculate from the information given in book 2, No Smoke Without Fire) and so he has passed forty since the books started. His wife, Susan, is about 4 1/2 years younger than him, so is looking forward with some trepidation to that milestone.
The advantage to me was always clear. Warren in many ways is a thinly disguised version of his creator (wish fulfilment, some might suggest!), so by writing him a similar age, I can draw on my own experience.
The disadvantage is that I have potentially built in an end-date for the series. Depending on what happens to public-sector pensions in the wake of the corona virus pandemic, Warren will hit sixty and be eligible to retire in 2034. Since I hope to have closed the gap between when the book is set and when it is published to two to three years, that's looking like a big party for Warren in Summer 2037's book!
So what will I do? Let him retire and bring him back as a cold-case investigator? Have him retire and end the series? Kill him off after a massive overdose of caffeine and custard creams? Stop ageing him in real-time, so that he remains ever-youthful, just like his creator? Go back in time and write stories about his early career? Write a spin-off series with other characters, perhaps featuring Warren as a cameo?

I don't know. But if I am still writing Warren in the 2030s, and people are still reading about him, then it's a nice problem to have!

As always, feel free to comment either here or on social media.


All the best,
Paul

I don't know who came up with that suggestion, but I couldn't agree more.
As a series writer in particular, I find it essential to have the backstories for each of my characters written out and easily accessible.

Doing so helps you remain consistent to the character and means that you don't have to keep on leafing through old manuscripts to find facts that you mentioned in passing once and half-remember (but your Amazon reviewers will know in exacting detail and castigate you for if you get them wrong). Sometimes, it even provides story inspiration.

I would suggest that a basic biography is essential for your primary protagonists and antagonists, advisable for more minor characters and at least a one or two line sketch useful for those characters that just wander in for a scene or two.

If you write a series, then you should definitely jot down at least a couple of lines for recurring characters.

How you choose to record those biographies is up to you. It could be as simple as a Word document or paper notepad, with a page of notes for each character or something a little more technical like a spreadsheet with a template, or a character chart. Some specialist writing packages have tools that help you keep track of characters.

The document should be a dynamic affair that you add to as you write. It's easy to get carried away writing, mention that somebody has a cat called Gertrude, and then, six-months later write a scene where they come home and are greeted at the door by a hungry ... Dog? Cat? Maybe called Colin ...?

It sounds like a bit of a faff, but it can pay dividends.
First of all, spending a little time planning a character - even if you are by nature a panster, not a plotter - can help you picture them in your mind's eye, making it easier to write them and find their voice.

Second, it can provide story inspiration.
Let's imagine that your character is a large, well-built male with plenty of testosterone. The door to an apartment is locked, and there were reports of what sounded like a struggle... There's a good chance that he's going to put his shoulder to the door. Inside there's a dead body etc etc.
Now let's imagine the same scenario, but your character is a petite female. She's never going to smash that door down, so she starts knocking on neighbouring apartments to see if anyone has a key. The older lady two doors down says somebody left the apartment moments before the police officer arrived.

Your female protagonist has just found out a key bit of information sooner than her male counterpart would have, since he might not have started door-knocking until after the body had been dealt with. Whereas the female officer has just alerted colleagues in the area to be on the look out for a suspect.

From a story-teller's perspective, either scenario gives you options to play with and could influence later choices that you make.

Third, as mentioned before, it helps keep you consistent throughout a book or series. There are some eagle-eyed readers out there, and whilst most are lovely and forgiving, human nature is such that others delight in loudly proclaiming on social media that the change in a character's eye colour between book one and book seven 'ruined the whole series for them' and they advise others to steer clear of such a sloppily written set of books (at which point they skulk back to Amazon and change their original gushing 5 star review to 1 star).

So what should you include?

Date of birth / age of character:
You do not have to state this in your book! But knowing roughly will help you write a character. How do they speak? Are they young or old? Are their references to pop culture broadly appropriate? If they aren't, have you discreetly justified the apparent discrepancy?
"Your knowledge of fifties swing music is pretty good for someone born in the twenty-first century".
"Yeah, my Nan was a huge fan, we used to listen to it when she babysat me."

Knowing their age may also inspire sub-plots. A younger officer not getting the significance of a clue that an older officer would take for granted, and vice versa.
In a series, characters may reach certain milestones over time - how do you reference this?

I'll write more about this in a later blog post.

Physical Description:
As much as you need or want, really.
Height, weight, build, fitness, disability (even something as minor as wearing glasses)
All of these can influence your story choices, as demonstrated above.

Eye, hair, and skin colour, piercings, tattoos, clothing etc.
Are they age or character appropriate? Could they be commented upon? Do they affect the way that others see them? Is there overt racism or implicit bias? Is an older woman with grey hair and a fondness for cardigans perceived as less dynamic than a thirty-something man in a sharp suit, with an even sharper haircut?

Perceived attractiveness:
This is a tricky one that should be used with care, but can be important to a story. Try not to embarrass yourself or your readers by being overly descriptive (I'm thinking especially of male authors who think that female characters spend hours in the bathroom mentally assessing their boobs by way of a detailed inner monologue). Our society is such that perceived attractiveness can impact on the way that people are treated, women in particular. Are 'attractive' characters assumed to be less intelligent? Are less-attractive characters over-looked by colleagues? Remember, unless the story is told from first person perspective, the perception of attractiveness should be from the character doing the judging. Leave your own peccadillos out of it!

Background:
How we are brought up can profoundly influence our choices and attitudes over the rest of our lives, but so can more recent life events. Take poverty for example. What affect would childhood poverty have on someone in later life? Would they be overly cautious with money once they earn a decent salary, or would they be a spendthrift, making up for everything they missed previously? What effect would poverty in later life have on a person who had a comfortable up-bringing? Knowing this can help you shape your character.
What about bereavement? Childhood or adult? Everyone reacts differently, so there is no 'correct' way to write this. But by considering it beforehand, you can remain consistent and your character will feel more real.

Religion, culture, sexuality and beliefs:
I've grouped an awful lot into this deliberately, as they tend to overlap. They can have a profound impact on the way that your character treats, or is treated by, others. How much you decide to work-out in advance will be determined by the needs of your story, and how much you feel it is relevant. But as always, knowing a bit more than you actually write down can help. And again, it can inspire plot points and avoid errors.
Take a practising Muslim character for example. It's easy enough to avoid basic errors such as them consuming pork or alcohol. But if you explicitly mention the date that your book is set, will that character be observing Ramadan during that period? If so, they are unlikely to join in with the breaktime donuts. Or perhaps they are itching to leave work on time so they get home and break the fast with their family?

Favourites:
Does your character have a favourite colour (that could influence their wardrobe), what about music, film and books? DCI Warren Jones loves cheesy 80s music - DI Tony Sutton teases him about it most books. Food? Warren is basically me, so he is a fussy eater. Again, I try to get something into most books. He and I also share a taste in biscuits.

Knowing your characters is so important to your writing. Not everything here will be relevant to every character or every book, and there are loads more things I could have suggested.

What are your thoughts? Is there anything else you think I should have included? Feel free to comment here, or on social media.

All the best,
Paul