I blogged recently about how I was getting my story information backward for a series I was working on and how I had absolutely nothing for the second book in what I thought was a four book series.
Blogging about it didn't help shake anything loose, but a conversation I had with someone about something completely different did.
My mini epiphany? There weren't four books in the series, only three.
I know, duh, right? It was originally three stories, but when a shift happened in the storyline, I thought I had to do four, but I just never had anything but a blank spot for that hero. He also had no heroine and no story. But I thought I had to do both of the first hero's friends plus the character on the team that was talking to me already. That equaled four.
It was a huge relief to realize that I didn't have to do both buddies. That I could do the second one later once he actually started talking to me.
Of course, solving one problem leads to other issues. The big one being how to handle the over arc across three books rather than four. This is a better problem than having blank characters because I just never have blank characters. Usually it's the opposite. But that's another story.
