I very much use Bill Willingham's approach on 'Fables,' which is that rather than having an end point to a series, I have an end point for the various story lines.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Although when I start a novel I know how it will begin and end, I like to let the people within the story take me on a journey between those points without having a fixed plan.
When I first starting conceiving series like 'Courtney,' 'Polly,' 'How Loathsome,' etc., I was shooting for closed story-arcs but open-ended concepts. Then I started realizing I was committing myself to potentially endless series.
I usually start with an ending, then outline high points of things that happen, and kind of make up the rest as I go along. Occasionally, the characters surprise me, and I wonder how we got here. Other times, the characters are stubborn and won't do something I want them to in the story.
Everything you write makes you better. But if you really need a tip, here's one: a good story begins in opposition to its ending. That means you work out how it finishes first, and then begin the story as far away from that point - in terms of character development - as you can.
I'm a big fan of a lot of graphic novels - 'Fables,' 'Y: The Last Man' and 'The Walking Dead,' which I like a lot more.
The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.
I am influenced by books which don't have their eye on the endgame, but which try to be entertaining on each and every page.
With a mini series you can give the story a proper sense of pacing, a proper sense of closure.
When I was a kid, the book that I liked the most was 'Aesop's Fables.' There was a version of it that my father read stories to us kids out of. I liked the idea of the short story format.
The nice thing about a series is you can end on cliffhangers all the time. You can be like, 'You know what? Here we go, this person just died, end of book.' And with the end of the series, you're very conscious of all the plotlines that were left hanging. There's a balance there to wrap those up but still leave it exciting.