Is It Over Yet? (Guest Post by Tim Piper, Author of The Jubilee Walker Series)

Have you ever wondered how an author goes about writing a series of books about the same main character? Do they plot out the entire arc of the series from the outset or just make it up as they go along? And if the latter is the case, how do they know when they’re finished?

While I’m sure some authors see the scope of their entire project before ever writing a word, I am not one of them. I wrote my first Jubilee Walker book, The Powell Expeditions, while looking no further ahead than that story, and it was my characters and the storyline that suggested there was more to tell, rather than any grand vision of mine.

For several years, I carried around the idea of a novel about Major John Wesley Powell and his Colorado Exploring Expeditions of the late 1860s. I first became familiar with Major Powell after hiking the Longs Peak Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park. Powell was the first American explorer to summit Longs Peak in the Colorado Rockies, and also the first to navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. It was while I was in Colorado that I found out, much to my surprise, that Powell had taught Natural Sciences at Illinois Wesleyan University, in my home town of Bloomington, Illinois. That cemented my desire to write about Powell’s expeditions, but it seemed too daunting to make Powell himself the protagonist of my novel, so instead I created Jubilee Walker, a farm boy orphaned at seventeen. Jubil turns to Powell, a family friend, for advice, then sets his sights on becoming part of Powell’s expedition.

As I neared completion of the novel, I began looking for ideas for my next project, and I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about the young adventurer and his supporting cast who I had gotten to know so well while writing The Powell Expeditions. I hadn’t set out to write a series, but I decided there might be more to the story. As I did research on other major historical events during that era, I found one that fit Jubil’s timeline and sensibilities perfectly: In the early 1870s, two expeditions were mounted to explore and survey the Yellowstone basin in Montana Territory. These expeditions resulted in Yellowstone becoming the first area in America to be designated a national park. I knew it was something Jubil would have gotten involved in, so I made these events the basis for the second book in my series, The Yellowstone Campaign.

While I was researching for this book, I learned about Jay Cooke, an American financier who lured people into investing in his efforts to build a second transcontinental railroad, the Northern Pacific. He advertised extensively to convince the public that they just had to visit the new national park—he called it Wonderland—and that buying bonds to help complete his railroad was the means to making that dream come true. The final two surveys for Jay Cooke’s railroad were conducted in 1872 and 1873. Considering Jubil’s passion for protecting Yellowstone and making it accessible to the public, it seemed highly plausible that he would have joined Cooke’s surveys. But this was too much material to include in my book on Yellowstone, and so a third Jubilee Walker book was born, The Northern Pacific Railroad.

By this time, I clearly had a series on my hands, and I was beginning to ask myself how this thing was going to end. I had taken some pains to write each book so that they could be read independently or in any sequence, but there were still a few plot points that extended through the first three books that left some issues unresolved. I imagined that Jubil would not have allowed these loose ends to flap forever, so once again, I felt him urging me to continue his story. I dipped back into my historical research to see what other events had taken place during the 1870s. I saw that the Black Hills gold rush occurred in 1875 and 1876, a few years after the end of The Northern Pacific Railroad. I asked myself what Jubil might be doing during those years just before the gold rush and how we might wrap up the loose ends from the previous books. The answers to these questions became my current novel, number four in the series, The Montana Gold Mine.

I am currently working on a fifth and final book, The Black Hills Dilemma, to be published at some future date—if it turns out well enough to earn its place. I’ve decided to end Jubil’s story based on two factors: First, I am itching to write about different settings and characters. Second, as I’ve worked on book five, Jubil and his extended family have been telling me that they are tired of forever being thrown into turmoil by my plots. I’ve decided to let them live in peace for a while. But while I’m calling book five the final book in the series, I’m reserving the right to bring Jubil and his family and friends back someday, if the spirit moves us. 

If you have finished a novel and are wondering whether you should turn it into a series or move on to something else, perhaps the answer lies with your characters and your storyline. Is there more to their story that needs to be told? Is there more that they hoped to accomplish? If so, follow them. If not, move on. You don’t have to know where it ends. You’ll find out when you get there.

~

Tim Piper is retired from a long career in Information Technology and has been a lifelong hobbyist musician. In his earlier days he was an avid hiker and backcountry camper, but his adventures these days are less strenuous and more comfortable.  He began his education at Illinois State University as an English major, but life circumstances put him on a more pragmatic path, and he graduated with a BS in Business Admin, a degree he finds appropriately named. You can reach him at Tim Piper - Author

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