"Writing the Series Book" by Margaret Sutton

I recently purchased a magazine that contains an article written by Margaret Sutton. The article is called "Writing the Series Book" and was published in The Writer in the April 1958 issue. The magazine contains articles that help others learn how to write and get published.

Margaret mentions the advantages of series books that are written by a single author instead of by multiple ghostwriters.

"On the other hand, if a single author writes the series, a theme or philosophy can be carried through the books. The theme becomes their reason for being, and if you believe in it you can say it over and over in story after story. It must be something you have learned from life and now want to pass on to the next generation. Your reader mustn't know this, of course. You may not know it yourself in the beginning. I didn't. I just had this strong inner urge to write."

Margaret states that Grosset and Dunlap eventually figured out that each book had been based on something that actually happened. "Somewhere along the way my publishers discovered that each book of the series had been based on something that really happened. I'm rather sorry they found it out. Facts can get in your way when you're writing fiction. Don't be afraid to change them. Only the basic truth you're trying to tell must remain unchanged. If you believe life is good and its problems can be solved, your story must say so."

Margaret mentions how some series books provide detailed summaries of previous books in the series and distract from the story while doing so.

"Flashbacks to earlier books prove difficult to some writers. I have avoided such paragraphs as,

In the first book of this series you were told how the Roulsville dam broke and washed away the town...

Instead, if I mention earlier books at all, it is done during the natural course of events."

Margaret gives an example from one of her stories and then comments, "This is a flashback, too, but it does not jerk the reader out of the story. I have told about that broken dam over and over, and always with emotion because the series began with a real flood which I experienced. But instead of telling the story the way it actually happened, with real names and real places, I told it the way I wished it with Judy Bolton, a doctor's daughter, and her brother Horace saving the flooded town."

Margaret makes an interesting point about how flashbacks should not pull the reader away from the story. All of the Stratemeyer Syndicate books are notorious for stopping the story in order to give a detailed history of the series. As an example, let's say that it is Chapter 1 in volume 15 of a Syndicate book. During this chapter, the Hero may encounter a vicious bear. As the bear is about to attack, the narrator states that while the Hero decides what to do about the bear, we will take a moment to review the Hero's past history. Next, the narrator gives brief summaries of each of the previous 14 books in the series, and the summaries end up taking up two to three pages of text. Finally, we get to see what happens with the bear.

I usually skim these summaries since I read the books in order with very little time between stories. The summaries are distracting and boring. In fairness, they were necessary back 70 to 100 years ago when only one book would come out each year and a child may not have read the previous book anytime recently.