Intros and Outros

[platinumgirl07]

I'm currently writting my series right now, and I need some tips on intros and outros. When writting a series, I understand that it's a good idea to have a recap in each part. Like, when you finish part one and start part two, you should recap part one right? So I'm wondering how you can best do that.

[Lappi]

Well, there are many ways to start a story. One type is abruptly, like in the middle of something. A lot of authors use that effect, and it's umm... pretty good. Another is a real introduction, yeah... And then there's one more but I can't remember anything. O.O let's try to remember... *thinks* Uhh... I can't remember. Ah well!!

And when ending a story, don't end it too suddenly. Go slow... until the end.

[mushroom]

You could write a quick A/N at the beginning...or just add a few sentences about it...i.e. "Bob the Aisha, Joe the Kacheek, and Mary Sue the Cybunny stared up at the castle. It had taken the discovery of a powerful, ancient artifact to start their journey, weeks of travel to arrive, and the help of a few new friends like the Faerie Queen to survive the trip, but they had finally made it!" or something (hopefully better-written) along those lines.

[sollunaestrella]

You could also just repeat the last one or two sentences of the last part if you had a cliffhanger last time. An example of this technique would be if your first part ended with, "As she tightened her grasp on the crumbling stone, her terror engulfed her, and her clutch on her sword slipped. The dangerous glint of the blade faded as it swirled into the abyss below her, and she felt a piercing pain in her soul." That was a random ending by the way. Anyway, those are the sentences you can begin with; that's the type of thing that that should be used for. It normally refreshes memory pretty well just to have those sentences.

If your ending is something more like a natural ending, you can just pick up where you left off. If necessary, the reader can refresh by clicking the link to the last part on the side.

[L]

I am not in favor of 'recapping' between parts of the series at all. Most intellegent readers are able to make the connection between the header that says "Continued series" and the fact that they should read the parts of the series they missed first. Anddd, if they can't, then they're stupid, and it is not a writer's job to coddle the stupid.

Simply begin by picking up the story where you left off in the last part.

[Tdyans]

And doing too much re-hashing of what happened in the previous part can backfire on you if Josh decides to split the series up differnetly than you did (which does happen sometimes.) You can try to weave in a little hint of what was just happening in the cliffhanger, but make it so that it would still flow as one continuous story. For instance, to use a literal example, maybe the last part of your series ends with: "Bob went sliding over the cliff edge..." And then the next part begins: "As he felt himself plummeting downwards, Bob grabbed for the cliff edge." It gives a little reminder, but you don't really need anything too overt. Like Laura said, if your readers need more, they can usually figure out for themselves to go back a part and refresh themselves.

Think of it as a commercial break. Every time a show comes back on after a commercial break, they don't say, "Here's what happened previously on ___." Yes, with the NT it's a week-long commercial break, but they do have the previous parts for reference...

[sara]

There is no right or wrong way to start and end a series. Personally I want a story to get moving pretty fast, but not so fast that I can't figure out what's going on (unless it's to be explained later).

Writing an ending to the last part is hard. You want it to at least put some kind of wrap on the story. But you don't want it to be too pat, too predictable, too gimmicky, too incomplete, I could go on.

Anyway, as said at the beggining, there is not right and wrong, just what works and doesn't work.