Open/close side menu
C.C. Hogan

Planning a Trilogy or Saga

Comment on this article

Sometimes the best advice is the telling off you give yourself

And Finally, writing the saga

Once upon a time

Well, in the case of my Saga, called Dirt, I am still writing it.

I now keep copious notes and my time lines are well populated.

I am on the second series in the saga, but I have a two page outline for the plot of series three and am already adding notes to that file from things coming up in series two.

But, am I enjoying it?

You bet I am. When I first started I did keep detailed notes, I thought, but they were not detailed enough and I was very worried that I was going to spend so much time planning that I will hate writing the book.

It was an idiotic worry. By planning in a chatty way rather than trying to do it like I was taught at school and by remembering to put comments and jokes all over the place in my notes, the planning has been as fun as the writing and when I have sat down to write my thousands of words, I have been able to live the story along with my characters, fall in love with them, be shocked with them and surprise them and me just as much as if I hadn't planned at all.

I do not know really whether people will like my saga or not, but I know the story hangs together and I know the characters, even the fantasy ones, have truth and reality running deep with them. 

The story I have created is long, complicated and the world is big and unpredictable. It has been and still is a labour of both love and hate, but without stopping halfway through book two and bothering to learn the few simple lessons I have talked about here, it would have collapsed and be sitting on the failed bin by now.

Yes, it is possible to sit and write a long, complicated story without detailed planning.  But should you do it?

Not in a thousand years!


  1. Planning a Trilogy or Saga
  2. Don't Start with a Blank Sheet
  3. Justifying everything
  4. Who Died?
  5. The Neverending Story
  6. Connecting Dots
  7. Don't make notes, write stories
  8. Keeping track and adding notes
  9. Where and When
  10. Getting bogged down in detail
  11. Writing the Plot
  12. And Finally, writing the saga

Comments

Please feel free to comment - no anger, no bad vibes, no trashing people. Just sit around, enjoy a flagon of beer and mull over the world. You can login with Disqus, Facebook, Twitter or Google.

Series One & Two are out now!

Start series one with Dirt for Free, and start reading the brand new series two with Girls of Dirt for only 99p!

Girls of Dirt includes a recap of series one.

Get it now at the Dirt website

The Stink Is Here

North London, 1976. The longest, hottest summer on record. The water is running out and the kids hate their parents. Which bunch of idiots would think it is a good idea to start a band?

The Stink

Visit The Stink Website

Stories