Over the past few weeks, I've been pondering what stories I may want to write when the Sunshine Walkingstick and Vanessa Kinley, Witch PI Series are completed. As I've mentioned elsewhere, it takes a while to build a solid story world; if I want to pick up a new series when these two are finished, then I need to start fleshing out characters and the rules of their respective worlds now.
When Sunny came to me in September 2014, I was still a baby writer with two series under my belt, both still (at that time) in progress. One had been developed over several years, during which I laid out the rules and the series' progression, if not the characters themselves.
Sunny's world took a while to develop, too, but it wasn't as fully formed when I started writing as my first series. I didn't take the time to step back and really shape Sunny's world; as a consequence, it became a monster free for all, which works for her.
After publishing five novels and several shorter works, however, I've come to believe that readers would've preferred a much more narrow slate of monsters, confined primarily to Appalachian cryptids.
Hindsight being what it is, I can't do anything about Sunny's world; it's writ in stone and I like it the way it is now, with all its myriad possibilities and flaws.
Future Series Possibilities
For future stories, however, I'd like to develop the story worlds with a lot more intentionality.
One series I'm contemplating now is also a Contemporary Fantasy set in the rural, Southern Appalachians (more specifically, in western North Carolina). When I began setting the rules down for this story world, I had to decide what kinds of characters (both human and other) would populate the landscape.
This one would not, I determined, be a free for all the way Sunny's was; such an open story world makes no sense for the characters and the situations they face, including the linchpin of the series, the impetus behind the story.
Another series I'm developing, which falls closer to the Urban Fantasy end of the spectrum, is similarly constrained. This one features witches, werewolves, and vampires, as Nessa's series does. Unlike Nessa's series, this one also includes other supernatural beings, such as angels and demons. Again, this was an intentional direction based on the initial premise.
Even with stories I'm developing that are offshoots of existing series, I'm aiming for more intentionality. I picked up a fabulous premade cover from Nocturne Cover Art (shown above) that inspired an expansion of Sunny's story for a Nora Vargas prequel (her origin story).
Originally, Nora's origin story would take place in Miami, where she was raised. After I picked up the premade cover, however, the story has gone in a different direction, merging an old story idea about a magical school located in the southern Appalachians into the world Sunny and Nora inhabit. This has created a wonderful opporunity to expand that world in ways I had never anticipated, if only because Nora faces challenges there that Sunny never has. And part of that expansion is into creatures and monsters that readers of the Sunshine Walkingstick Series stories really wanted to see there.
I'm developing other story worlds, too, some expansions of Sunny and Nessa's worlds, others independent of anything I've done before here. I'm not sure which ones I'll focus on first, but the ones mentioned here are thus far the primary candidates.
A Better Reading Experience?
Much of this intentionality is simply a maturation of my grasp of story craft and development. Some of it, though, is a realization that my creative energies sometimes need to be focused more precisely. Writing, like any other profession, requires continual learning and improvement. The one thing I don't want to do is fall into a rut, so that my stories are no longer unique and fulfilling to readers.
Thus, intentionality will, I hope, help me satisfy readers' evolving tastes throughout the remainder of my career as a storyteller. My goal is always to provide the best reading experience I can every time I sit down to plan and write a new story, and my readers shape those decisions more than they realize. They're one of the huge influences behind why I choose the stories I do, why I discard others, and why I am continually (and subtly, I hope) querying them regarding various aspects of story. If the goal is to create a better reading experience, then readers must be at the heart of that.
At any rate, I'm super excited about these new story worlds and the characters slowly coming to life in my mind. It's very likely that I'll choose one soon to work on while finishing out Sunny and Nessa's stories, so expect to hear more on them in the coming months.