All of my craft and structure and any of my writing advice it all
roots in the ability to make the audience keep reading.
[MUSIC]
Hello I am Victoria Aveyard, I am the author of Red Queen series, and
the Realm Breaker series which the second book is coming out very soon.
And I am hard at work writing the third and final installment in that trilogy.
So because I have done that or at least like fallen ass backwards into doing
that almost twice it seems that Epic Reads things I'm a little qualified to talk
about what it's like to structure a series from a craft standpoint.
I am a big fan of structure, specifically three-act eight-sequences,
which you use for a novel.
If you look at my books, you can very much break them down into that pattern.
But you can also break my series is down into that pattern.
That's something people don't really know is the series itself also has to have that
kind of rhythm and cohesion.
So that the audience feels like they are on this journey that isn't stop/start,
that has a pace to it.
That is naturally very easy for an audience to feel and
it allows them to get that much deeper into the story.
Because they're not feeling like this moment was rushed or I needed a break here
or this part's boring, because everything is happening the way it should.
It's almost like a pulse, a story has a pulse.
And that is true for a series as well.
So for me I do tend to think about my series, especially with Realm Breaker,
which made it a little bit easier because it is three books.
So you can very much break them down into book 1 is act 1,
book 2 is act 2, book 3 is act 3.
If you're thinking about stories that are more familiar to you,
the original Star Wars trilogy really breaks down to this very, very well.
And you have each individual film, have its own structure,
have its own act sequencing, but then the story as a whole has it too.
It's really cool when you break it down and look at it.
So I'm always thinking about structure,
I'm always thinking what's the lowest point of this story?
That for me is always the most important part of the book and then a series.
For Realm Breaker, the lowest point of the story is at the end of Blade Breaker.
And if you are thinking about the Red Queen series,
the lowest point of Red Queen, that one gets a little wonky
because there's four books I had to stretch it a little bit.
The lowest point of Red Queen is probably the end of King's Cage,
even though the end of Glass Sword, we really feel low.
But the emotional, the "you have been beaten and defeated,
you thought you were in this thing and
now you don't have it anymore" is really at the end of King's Cage.
It kind of forces Mare and all the characters around her to readjust.
And then we go into our third act which was War Storm.
And that's why War Storm is so much momentum because my third acts
I feel like I've been pushing a stone all the way up this hill.
And then third act is when I get to let it go [SOUND].
The third book in Realm Breaker is gonna be lots of fun and lots of battles and
lots of momentum and lots of emotional stakes.
Which brings me to the second part, the second most important thing
I think about when I am crafting a series, and that is escalation.
You never wanna bore your audience, you never want your audience to feel like
you've taken a step back in the progression of the story.
And you never want them to feel like, something doesn't matter,
it doesn't have stakes.
So you're always trying to outdo what you did before.
And that doesn't necessarily mean, in this book, the battle was five on five.
So on the next book, it has to be 50 on 50, and then 500 on 500.
That's the very simple way to do escalation and it's very effective.
There are some fantastic books that do that pull that off,
Lord of the Rings is one.
The battles start very small, the stakes feel very small, and
then by the end you've got whole armies going against each other.
But you also have to think about your emotional stakes and
the depths to which you are pushing your characters.
Things need to matter, things need to feel more difficult.
You need to be throwing as many obstacles as possible at your characters,
but also thinking how do I top this?
How do I make sure that this isn't the end of the road for
this particular piece of this person's story?
Cuz if you blow it in book one, you're gonna get to book three and
people be like, been there done that.
That thing was harder than this thing, you want the audience to constantly think they
are going to fail, they're not gonna get through this obstacle.
And then they're gonna want to see how the character does it.
And that keeps them reading.
All of my craft and structure and, any of my writing advice,
it all roots in the ability to make the audience keep reading.
To keep going, to hold on to that rope that you've put in their hands, and
now you're pulling them.
Every trick I have, every piece of world building,
every piece of character and plot an action set piece,
it is all designed to make sure the audience doesn't put down the book.
And sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail, but
that's always what I'm thinking about.
I'm always thinking about the audience.
That's I think why people connect to my book so well is because I'm so
aware of them.
And I think that's why I like writing fantasy the way I do because Red Queen,
Realm Breaker I've been told by a lot of people.
"I never read fantasy books but I love these and
now I wanna read more fantasy books" and I find that to be so complimentary.
Some people are like "I don't want you to think it was too easy" or
whatever and I think, "no I want it to be accessible".
Fantasy feels like it has a barrier to it just because you open the book and
there's a map or a family tree it intimidates people.
So we're always trying to design our stories to be as easily
metabolized as possible and to not be intimidating.
Especially when you're working in genre like fantasy, sci-fi, people
are going in with preconceived notions, and you can use that to your advantage.
So in terms of structuring a series,
I would say always be aware of your audience, always be aware of your pacing,
always be aware of the general arc and rhythm of the story.
And figure out how you're going to keep pulling your reader through those books.
It's a very hard thing to do but
I believe in you guys cuz somehow I've managed to do it a couple of times.
So hopefully that was helpful to you, I know I kind of ramble a little bit but
I do love to talk craft, I do love to talk writing and
I do love to talk about my books.
So if you have any questions, comments, whatever, put them down below.
I talk about this stuff on my Instagram,
on my TikTok, I'm always here and I mean that as a threat [LAUGH]