Writing A Bestselling Series

Chapter 7: The Lifesaver

I knew that the second book in my Serpent Catch series was doomed. There were three indicators. The first was that my publisher had been bought out by a conglomerate that wanted to ditch all of the science fiction and fantasy authors—literally dozens of them. The second came when my editor asked that I change the novel on the second book. I tried dozens of titles, and she didn't like them. I always felt that a good title combines two strong images and make the reader wonder what the story is about, but the my editor suggested a title that was rather bland. The title she wanted, "Path of the Hero," didn't really provide any strong images for me. Last of all, when the cover came in, it depicted a night scene. Oh, the artwork was fine, excellent even, but a dark cover would fade into the background.

In one review in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, readers were urged to go search on the bottom shelf at the book store where my books were (since they were written under the last name of Wolverton) and hunt for that book with the dark cover.

The book really didn't ever have much of a chance.

About a month before I finished it, though, my editor called up one day and asked, "What do you think about the Star Wars movies?" I began to give her my literary analysis of the films, and she said, "No, no, no. What I mean is, would you be interested in writing a Star Wars novel?"

Heck yeah. I'd seen the first film some 35 times, and the second 14. I'd liked them so much, that at that the age of 19, I even began preparing myself to apply for a job at Lucas's special effects studio, Industrial Light and Magic. I studied macro-photography, began working with computers, writing, studying special effects and lighting. It was a short-lived interest, but very intense.

But I had a novel to finish and asked to be given time to think about it.

A couple of days after I turned in Path of the Hero, my editor called again. She explained that my publisher wasn't buying any science fiction at the time, but that she hoped to be able to keep me on. I quite liked her and was eager to stay, too, so she asked if I would write a Star Wars novel. Timothy Zahn was just getting ready to release his second, and she said, "The numbers look very promising, so if you do one, it might give you enough money to live on for a year or so, and buy me some time."

Now, I went and looked at Timothy Zahn's novels and some other Star Wars books. The writers were all good, but on a critical level, I had begun to think of books a bit differently.

You see, there is no such thing as a "genre." The word genre is a marketing term that describes the primary emotional appeal of a novel. We have thrillers, romances, mysteries, and so on. These are all emotional appeals. One science fiction editor back in the 1950s suggested that science fiction and fantasy be sold in a "wonder" section, and he was absolutely right. That's the primary appeal of these kinds of novels.

In fact, if you look a little closer, you can see that every book is like a little emotional symphony, with a primary emotional draw, a secondary, a tertiary, and so on.

So what is Star Wars? Well, there was the wonder, of course, but it also scores very high on adventure, comedy, then some drama, romance, and mystery.

In looking at what other authors were doing, I felt that they were getting a lot of the draws right, but they were missing the comedy beats.

So I decided to have some fun. I got some friends from my writing group together and pitched them some ideas, then just sat back and watched to see which ideas made their eyes sparkle. Certain ideas would cause their eyes to twinkle, then they would get excited about the idea and try to figure out how to add it to my narrative. If an idea didn't excite them, I threw it out.