Write Your Own Cake: Tips for Writing a Long Series

Write Your Own Series #2

by Jennifer Estep

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Estep continues her Write Your Own Cake series with an essay about creating and authoring a long book series. Estep is the author of more than 50 fantasy and science-fiction books, including the long-running Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series.

Writing a book is hard. But writing book after book with the same characters and settings? Well, that is even harder.

Whether you are penning epic fantasy adventures, pulse-pounding thrillers, or swoon-worthy romances, writing a book series comes with its own unique challenges. This essay offers some tips and tricks for setting up your initial worldbuilding and magic system in anticipation of writing multiple books in the same series. It also offers suggestions on characters, tropes, and more that can help keep an ongoing book series fresh and interesting for both authors and readers.

Write Your Own Tips for Writing a Long Series is a 2,100-word essay about writing and worldbuilding.

Genres: Nonfiction

20 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 14, 2025

About the author

Jennifer Estep is a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author who prowls the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea.

Jennifer is the author of the Elemental Assassin, Section 47, Galactic Bonds, Crown of Shards, Gargoyle Queen, and other fantasy series. She has written more than 40 books, along with numerous novellas and stories.

In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys hanging out with friends and family, doing yoga, and reading fantasy and romance books. She also watches way too much TV and loves all things related to superheroes.

For more information on Jennifer and her books, visit her website at www.JenniferEstep.com or sign up for her newsletter: http://www.jenniferestep.com/contact-....

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Happy reading, everyone! 😎

Reviews

[Liliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed on Lili Lost in a Book

This is Jennifer Estep’s second book in this Write Your Own Series, which is nonfiction and all about how to write books and series and all that good writing/author stuff. I mentioned in my review of that previous book that I will literally read anything this woman writes, even this. Lol. And here we are again! 😆



This had a lot of really helpful tips when it comes to writing series, especially long ones. And Jennifer is an expert in that, in my opinion, since her Elemental Assassin series is 19 books long ! But it’s SO good! I know I have mentioned this many times before, but that series just kept getting better and better and I’ve always marveled at that. One thing she mentioned in this book that she does to keep the series fresh and interesting is incorporating story elements from other genres, which is something I’ve always loved about her writing! She mentioned Deadly Sting , which is book 8 in the Elemental Assassin series, and that is one of my favorite books of the entire series! It is very fast-paced because it takes place mostly all in one day, but it also includes this sort of heist/robbery and I’ve always thought that was a lot of fun!



But this had a lot of other really helpful writing and world-building tips that I feel writers would really appreciate. But more than that, for me as a reader (though I have dabbled in writing here and there), I enjoyed getting insight into how my favorite author writes my favorite series and how it's still so good after 19 books. Lol.

I miss Gin though. It might be time for a re-read 😏

[BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme · Rating 4 out of 5]

This can be read independent of the previous book. Curious as to what this help for writing stories would be like, I picked it and read through it. What I liked is the reinforcement of the message and providing clear examples of how to write a long running series. I probably will never write a book, let along a series. However, if I were to do so, this does help give me guidelines as a newbie writer.

[Joy Whiteside · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting read that will give you insight into how to create and keep a long series going. It is a nice quick read that will help you to understand this process and help you to write your own stories.

[Tyrean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great essay of practical tips

I really liked this great essay of practical tips for writers looking for help for writing long, overarching series fiction.