Seriously, what I wanted to bring up was the topic of juggling separate, single title books that are related. Connected. Intricately entwined.
Writing a novel is hard enough. Writing related novels has its own set of challenges. You’re not just dealing with one set of characters and storylines, but multiples. As a writer, you find yourself juggling faster and faster, more and more balls, trying not to drop any of them.
Then why torture yourself? you ask. Oh, lots of reasons. First and foremost, I write for my readers. Many of my related books are a response to thousands of queries from fans. And remember, readers are smart cookies. If you give them a snotty teenager or a pregnant sister or a person with a big secret in Book 1, they’ll want to see what she’s up to in Book 2. For example, after Halfway to Heaven was published, I was inundated with requests for Helena’s story. I also have readers asking me to write books about Cameron from Table for Five, Emma from The Ocean Between Us, Josh and Lauren from Ocean and Callie from Lakeside Cottage.
Why these characters? And how do you decide? Every writer I know who has written fiction has experienced that “aha” moment, when a secondary character–a sidekick or relative, a pathetic victim, an object lesson, a mere literary device–created out of thin air suddenly takes on depth and dimension and seems to walk off the page, intent on her own adventure. Next thing you know, you’re writing the sister’s story, or the best friend’s, or even the widowed dad’s.
I promised myself that with the current books I’m writing, I will plan ahead. I won’t paint myself into a corner with a storyline. I even have a name for the series: The Lakeshore Chronicles. 
The cast is introduced in Book 1, Summer at Willow Lake, an old-style Adirondack summer camp that’s been in the family for generations. What could be simpler? I asked myself. But you know what? It’s still hard. I’ve got characters coming and going, people hooking up and getting pregnant, secrets being kept and divulged, betrayals and acts of selfless generosity, and I have to keep remembering who did what, and when, and what grade the kids are in….So for me, the big challenge is all those balls. There are days when I feel like Gulliver, a mass of confusion pinned down by my myriad Liliputian characters. Other days, I am the master puppeteer, planting clues like seeds of morning glory. Still other days, like today, I rock the city when it comes to bad similes and metaphors.
Happy writing!
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Despite my best intentions, continuity is the bane of my existence and readers call me on it all the time. It hurts. There comes a point when I KNOW I’ve made this huge error between books and character A had a baby girl in book 1 and I called it a boy in book 2, but it haunts me forever. I feel your pain, Susan. LOL!
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I like your use of the juggling — I’ve started to feel like that with my latest book – actually had to get out the paper and pen to record things so I wouldn’t spend hours scroll for where I was ‘pretty’ sure I’d said something about a secondary character — something as inaine as hair color which I truly thought one couldn’t ever forget! But turns out, when you have enough characters in your head… you can. :)
Cole
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Carly – I wake up at night counting kids’ ages on my fingers. Glad to know I’m not alone!
Cole – I put a character name chart on my blog. It’s in the current post and click the link that says “character name chart.” It helps a bit. For the Lakeshore books, I’m color-coding the names to indicate which book(s) the character appears in. And to procrastinate. Mustn’t forget that, either.
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It gets confusing for us readers too sometimes lol. If I pick up a book in the middle of a series I feel like I’m missing something. If it’s too long between stories then I tend to forget things. Sometimes I wait to get all the books but now I’ve learned to read the first book just in case. There are times when I would like to know what happens to the other characters but I much prefer having things neatly wrapped up in one book (I know, I’m probably the minority here lol).