A Long, Winding, and Joyful Path to Writing a Book Series

Writing a series was not in the original dreamscape for me.

When I finished the first draft of my first novel, ***God Bless the Child**, what I considered a win was no different than what most wannabe authors crave: to get a book published. A book. The book. One, singular book*. Call me old-fashioned, but I wanted an agent, a traditional publisher, and frankly, the validation that I believe to be part of that path.

I had a solid piece of work that had been developed with support from a professional editor whom I’d come to know and trust. I started the humbling process of querying agents and weathered my fair share of rejections. Life with three kids, two dogs and a communications career continued to unfold, and it just seemed best to table the whole works for a while. A while lasted eighteen years.

I reached out to my editor to see if he would take a look at some of my new writing. He was gracious and willing, but encouraged me to take that first novel out of the vault. I’d left it buried in a file that I kept right behind our tax returns. My sights were set on writing a new novel, something better. Still, I pulled the draft out and started reading it with older, but fresh eyes to prepare for the next conversation with my editor.

Let’s just say that my original dreamscape was still intact, but bigger and more ambitious than anything I had imagined for myself. Remember, I’m a cheap date. One published novel was going to satisfy me. My editor saw the potential for a series long before I could. With God Bless the Child serving as the anchor, my new starts were still new enough to be adapted into Books Two and Three in what has become **The Women of Paradise County Series**, which was recently expanded to include a fourth book. I have three books under my belt, and I’m knee-deep in writing that fourth one. Wrapping this baby up in a way that will satisfy readers and do justice to the characters I’ve come to love is a very nice problem to have. This debut author with a traditional publisher trusting her to produce a series knows that what she holds is a priceless opportunity.

My baptism by fire has proven an incredible sandbox in which to experiment with building a world that readers will want to revisit. I will always be refining my craft, but I have identified some perspectives that keep things on the rails.

• Respect the characters. They are no more real than their circumstances, the setting, the story arc, or any other pieces of the world I’ve put them in. They aren’t real, but they are recognizable. They are based on people and moments observed and absorbed for nearly sixty years. Real people are complex, flawed, consistent in some ways, and wildly unpredictable in others. They do more than push along the narrative. If written well, good characters give readers a less threatening way to examine ourselves.
• Good storytelling thrives on repetition. Rehashing and retelling bits and pieces of story arcs both big and small is not new. It’s primal, and frankly, essential for writing a series. I try to remember that I’m writing four stories that must stand on their own and exist together as a larger story. The series just allows each story arc room to breathe. It gives the characters a chance to stretch their legs, grow, change, and to be as human as I want them to be. There is nothing about the human condition that is neat or tidy. I let the characters do some of the heavy lifting here. They gossip. They recollect. They overthink. They muse and rehash things, and in doing so, keep readers in their world.
• Let settings work beyond space and time. Just like the characters that inhabit them, fictional settings can do some serious work if we let them have more than imaginary boundaries and coordinates. I like to create spaces that are featured across the whole series, and use them to further the narrative. I let characters interact with these spaces with all of their senses and to share everything they know about a space. This provides reference points that do more than paint a picture. For instance, Kline’s Department Store exists throughout The Women of Paradise County Series. For some characters, important things happen there, but other characters can only press their noses against glass windows. Not everyone can afford to shop at Kline’s. I use the store to establish socioeconomic layers that are central to themes and overall tone of the series. It puts meat on the bones of the story, hopefully making it far more palpable and impactful.

Anne Shaw Heinrich’s work has been published in numerous outlets, most recently, Writer’s Digest, Education Weekly and Ms. Magazine, as well as The New York Times bestseller The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2: Your Turn (Atria 2006) and Chicken Soup for the Soul’s The Cancer Book: 101 Stories of Courage, Support and Love (2009). Her debut novel, God Bless the Child, was the first in The Women of Paradise County Series published by Speaking Volumes. ***Violet is Blue released in June 2025. [House of Teeth](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231468181-violet-is-blue)*** releases in June 2026. Learn more at anneshawheinrich.com.