How I Came to Write a Novel Series

I didn’t set out to write a series of novels about the Oregon Trail and settlement of Oregon. I only intended to write one historical novel. But I have now published five books in my historical fiction series, and I’m working on the sixth, with a seventh planned.

How did I get here? I’m often surprised myself by what I’ve written in the last several years.

I started out with an idea for one novel—the story of a mismatched couple traveling the Oregon Trail to escape their problems back home. This story had been in my mind for at least twenty years, and it became Lead Me Home, the first book in my series, with protagonists Mac McDougall and Jenny Calhoun.

Actually, the story I intended to tell about Mac and Jenny was more than just their journey along the Oregon Trail. I always thought there would be more to their story after they reached Oregon. Originally, I thought I could tell their whole story in one book. But when my first draft of Lead Me Home was well over 100,000 words, I knew I would need another book. The second half of Mac’s and Jenny’s story became Now I’m Found.

Now I’m Found left one character, Zeke Pershing, in an uncertain situation. I liked Zeke, and wanted him to find happiness. But first I needed to research more about the settlement of Oregon.

So I went back to the beginning of the Oregon Trail and picked up other characters in the same wagon train that Mac and Jenny had traveled with. (After all, I’d already done that research.) My third novel, Forever Mine, became the story of Daniel Abercrombie and Esther Pershing and their families. I found that different characters gave me an entirely different perspective on this journey than using Mac’s and Jenny’s points of view. Forever Mine could be read before Lead Me Home, even though it was written third.

Finally, I was ready to write My Hope Secured—the story of Zeke Pershing and Hannah Bramwell. I had never conceived of Hannah’s existence when I started my series, but she quickly became one of my favorite characters. She is strong and opinionated, and a good foil for Zeke’s laid-back dedication to his farm and his family.

As I became enamored of my characters, I realized there were loose threads in some of the earlier stories. One loose thread was what happened to Mac and Jenny over the years, and particularly to their oldest son William. Will discovered Mac’s and Jenny’s darkest family secret, a secret that rocked him to his core. Then Will, Mac, and Jenny had to wrestle with what that meant to their future, which is the major plotline in Safe Thus Far, the fifth book in the series.

Now I am writing the sixth book. (I’ll announce the title sometime in the future.) It takes a couple of peripheral characters from earlier books and brings them into adulthood. They missed their chance at happiness in their younger years, and I’m hoping they find it in this novel.

I have a seventh book in the series planned—one to continue Will’s path to adulthood. I think that seventh novel will be the end of the series, but who knows? I may decide some other character needs a chance to speak.

I’ve learned so much as I’ve written these books. It remains a challenge to develop futures for my characters that are consistent with their pasts, but futures that also give them satisfying story arcs and make readers love these people as much as I do.

What do you like best about reading a novel series?