Who can do this?
Owners and co-authors with rights to the project edit the series planning.
Series story arc
The series story arc is a planning field for series and controls the engine’s book goal check.
What is it for?
If your project consists of several books, you record here whether they are finished standalone books or an ongoing series. In addition, there is the planned number of parts and a series goal as free text. Under “Books” you see each book with its cliffhanger status.
The entries are purely planning. They only affect one check of the Illuminatio Engine, the book goal divergence. It reports a book that still has open foreshadowing hints at its end without being marked as a deliberate cliffhanger.
For standalone books, the engine checks each book right away. For an ongoing series, it only checks once as many books exist as you planned, because threads may stay open before that. Without a series type, it does not check.
How it works
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Open “Series arc”.
What you see afterwards: The sections “Series planning” and “Books” appear.
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Choose the “Series type”, for an ongoing series enter the number under “Planned parts” and describe the “Series goal”.
What you see afterwards: The planning is filled in.
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Save.
What you see afterwards: “Saved.” Below it, each book shows “Part of the series” or “Standalone” and “Cliffhanger” or “No cliffhanger”.
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In the book, under the basics, mark “Ends on a cliffhanger” if open threads are intended.
What you see afterwards: The engine excludes this book from the book goal check.
Your data
Series type, planned parts and series goal belong to the project and are backed up and exported with it. The series goal is stored encrypted in the database.
Limits
The module switches itself on as soon as a project has two books or a first book is marked as part of a series; afterwards you can switch it off like any module. The check does not run without a series type, and for an ongoing series not without planned parts. The series goal has at most 10,000 characters.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does the book goal divergence report?
A book that still has foreshadowing hints with the status “Open” whose hint scene lies in this book. The engine excludes books marked “Ends on a cliffhanger”.
Why does the engine report nothing for my ongoing series?
It only checks once the number of books reaches the value under “Planned parts”. Without a number entered, no check takes place.
Do I need the series story arc for a single book?
No. The module only switches on at two books or at one book that is marked as part of a series.