the fun (& weirdness) of writing a series out of chronological order
If you've touched the Aughts Boys series, you know that, if you were to put the first four books of the series in chronological order, they would go 3, 2, 1, 4. Book three, Right or Wrong, starts in August of 2003. Book two, The Horror of Camp New Woods, in June of 2004. Book one, One More Sad Song, in August of 2004 and, of course, book four, Hit or Miss, in August of 2005. Currently, I'm working on book five, Until I Fall Away, which starts in May of 2006.
I have the first fifteen books written, at least in first draft form. Books 1-4 are published, so everything in them is Canon Canon. Book five is currently being rewritten, and it will then be edited, and retyped, and then published and be canon canon. Books 6-15 are in first draft range, which means that their basic story is set but little things can be switched around. Books 16-24 are only conceptualized.
If I were to order them all chronologically, the ones with first drafts, at least, it would look like this:
7. No Remorse (August 2001)
12. Loser (August 2001)
14. Everything's Fine (August 2001)
3. Right or Wrong (August 2003)
9. Threat to Survival (August 2003)
2. The Horror at Camp New Woods (June 2004)
1. One More Sad Song (August 2004)
8. Bleed it Out (August 2004)
13. Last Resort (May 2005)
5. Until I Fall Away (May 2006)
10. Ohio is for Lovers (July/August 2006)
15. The Art of Losing (July 2007)
11. So Poetic (September 2007)
6. Promise Me (June...2013? 2014? I still gotta figure this out.)
The real fun, here, is when later books inform earlier books in the series when I'm writing a second draft; for example, I decided in book ten that a character who died in book four gets a memorial... and so, when rewriting book five, I add that in. Just as a little thing. It gives me some continuity.
The only issue here, the only book that I think fails to really connect with the rest of the series is the first one. This series is less of a series and more of a series of interconnected companion novels; there are no repeat point of view characters, apart from the fact that, starting in book three, after the main story I started adding little scenes with what other POV characters are doing at this point. Chronologically, the POVs are: Quinn Stephens, Benji Holmes, Brodie Mohren, Luke Mikkelson, Nick Jaxon, Elliot Roth, Zeke Williams, Eddie Kostaki, Jack Williams, Ashton Mohren, Matt Klein, Vic Burgess, Jackson Falvey, Benjamin Holmes, and Kevin Davidson. Originally, the end of the series was going to be book five. I realized that the only thing all of these books had in common was Matt, and so I figured the best thing to do would be to just write a Matt book and be done with it.
And then I wrote the Kevin book, and was like, well, maybe this will be the end of the series.
And then I wrote the Quinn book and was like, well, I guess this series will not end. Because I keep finding fun side characters that I want to write books about. And it keeps growing. And those books get side characters, and so on and so forth. But it's fun. It's a fucking trip, really, trying to keep it cohesive and everything straight. But it's fun. And honestly, prose-wise, these books are the easiest for me to write. So.
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