I know how my series begins, how it ends, and how the characters get to the end. I do have my 2 major protagonists and my major antagonist (along with his henchmen who serve as antagonists). I want it to be a webcomic trilogy. I also do have a general idea of my world building. I plan on making some chapters feel episodic, like they have their own story but in the same way have relevance to the main plot itself. However I don't want it to feel like a monster of the week all the time (although I do want to sneak some of them in). If you want to know more I can edit the post. But I am asking how do you write a series (whether its book, tv, or comic)?
I've never really escaped the Hero's Journey despite my best efforts, so my rare attempts at a series switch around who the hero is. With each story, I (attempt to) give a different character an arc of growth and change. Prior characters may appear, but I'm generally done changing them. The Otherland series by Tad Williams takes the brute-force approach, telling a single continuous story that's been broken into four chunks by approximate page count. The first quarter of the story is introduction, so the first of four books ends just as the plot is about to go somewhere. I found this pretty unsatisfying. One of the better approaches I've seen is the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, which gives the FMC a different large conflict and a different personal conflict each book, with a natural segue at each ending. For instance, her large conflict in the first book is "Who am I and why are these people trying to kill me?" and her personal conflict is "Why do I love the MMC when I don't even remember him?" At the end of the book, these are fully resolved. The conflicts it sets up to follow throughout book 2 are "How can I save the other people like me?" and "Can I ever forgive the MMC for all the horrible things he's done?"
Just from sheer experience I can tell how long an idea of mine can take and whether it can possibly lead to more stories or whether the ending is too concrete for a serial. It's all an approximation and sometimes the writing itself morphs it strongly. Just have your beginning, the desired ending, and make it fit into container. Keep the overall arc present but focus on the small parts that make the MCs ready for the end.
Easy way is to outline everything. You know that it is a series you want, so outline each comic. If you want 30 comics to tell your story, make a brief outline for each one. Then go back and outline each comic scene by scene. Good Luck with it by the way.
I try to do outlines but often find myself too constrained by what's down and I can't come up with new ideas because I'm overly focused on what I planned. But to each their own :3 Pros/cons!
Ah I see. Well I've started outlining something similar to that. In each book for the trilogy I had in mind, there is usually one antagonist sent by the same overlapping antagonist.
