Keeping a Series Alive by Carola Dunn
When I first proposed the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series to my agent, I'd chosen my period (1920s), my setting (England), and my protagonist (Daisy). I had decided Daisy would be of an aristocratic family, so she could question a duke about why he was in the library at the stroke of midnight, but impoverished, so she had to work for a living. And I made her a journalist to give her an excuse for finding bodies all over the country, thus avoiding St. Mary's Mead/Cabot Cove syndrome. In Heirs of the Body (just out in paperback), for instance, she's staying at her family's estate in Worcestershire. Beyond that, all I knew was that I didn't want to have to think up titles. I had already written over 20 Regencies and I was tired of coming up with good, eye-catching, memorable titles. I decided my series would be Death in January, Death in February, Death in March, etc. Each plot would be related to the month. Thus the first would have a body in ...