Thoughts on Weisner's Writing the Fiction Series

I just finished reading Karen Wiesner's Writing the Fiction Series. I knew the moment I had the idea for my current project that it would be a series rather than a stand-alone novel, so I picked up this book for some series-specific advice. Overall, I think it provided excellent advice and structured worksheets to help a series writer get organized. I also appreciated the outline of the various series and book arcs of the Harry Potter Series in the end as a way to visualize how J.K. Rowling worked so many plants into her novels.¹

There was also a lot of good advice for authors with respect to writing characters for a series, but I did not agree with everything Ms. Wiesner had to say. One area that I patently disagreed with was the idea that you should not kill off important characters. In Writing the Fiction Series, Ms. Wiesner accuses J.K. Rowling of killing off a number of her characters for no reason. I heartily disagree with this statement. I believe that an integral part of J.K. Ro…