Ask Elnora--about continuities???Lenora Worth

It's a continuing saga, darlings. Those pesky but adorable continuities we love to write. Heavens, it took Elnora forever to learn to spell that, let along pronounce it. But now I'm a veteran at writing continuities. Last count, I've been a part of seven now, some for Love Inspired and some for Love Inspired Suspense. So I thought it would be nice to talk about little know facts about continuities.

First, dear readers, a continuity is a series of six books written by six different authors that contain a common plot thread that moves through each book. They usually involve big families (six children, or six cousins, or six friends). And there is usually a mystery or a conflict that starts in book one and continues until book six.

Elnora has written book number one, two book number twos, book number three, book number five, and two book number sixes. Confused yet? That's a little know fact about continuities--we all stay confused. When you get six writers together with six different plots that our dear editors come up with, you get confusion. But I'm happy to say (and I've worked with a lot of different writers) after much hashing and a few hissy fits, we all seem to get along famously! Writing a continuity teaches one to play nice with others. We learn compromise and diplomacy and it is fun to brainstorm. (Odd, word that--brainstorm!!)

But one other thing about continuities--They also drive the readers a bit crazy. Our readers love them, of course. But we get letters of confusion all the time. Sometimes the readers don't understand that the thread is continued in the next book or that there is even going to be a next book. Some get a tad angry and some jump up and down and go and order all six books. I have one friend who buys each book but refuses to read any of them until she has all six. Then she gets into the story and keeps reading until she's finished. She says she likes reading them all together. Right now we have the Rocky Mountain Heirs continuity in Love Inspired. It began in July with Linda Goodnight's "The Nanny's Homecoming". There's your starting point!

So let's discuss--Do you know what a continutiy is? Do you like reading them? Is there something you don't like about them? And would you help us spread the word that there is one LI continuity and one LIS continuity out each year (nice that we have twelve months since that's twelve books) (so far) and I do believe LIH has ventured into continuity territory. We don't want confused readers. We want happy readers. But we don't mind clarifying things for all of you either. You can usually find the books in a series listed in the front of each of the six books.)If you're not sure, just check there. So what do you love about continuities and do you have any favorites???

To be continued......