SEQUELS

    I'm back from a long hiatus. I apologize to regular readers of my blog - it appears when I'm writing a manuscript, most of my writing energy is taken up by that. Between that and certain outside obligations - most notably my monthly contribution to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog the first Thursday of every month - and it seems I have little energy left to keep up my own blog. I'm going to work on that in the future, because this blog is every bit as important to me as any of those other projects. It's how I keep in touch with my readers, after all.

    The good news is Bloodtrail, the hotly-awaited sequel to Bloodflow, is off to the editor. Now the rest is up to him. But this has prompted me to share a few thoughts I have on sequels. A new perspective, as it were, gained by working on this project and facing the age-old challenges of all writers struggling to write a series.

    For example, with so many fans of the first book, is it possible to please them all? It's unlikely that everyone likes all the same things about the first book, so what are those elements of the first book that drew most readers and kept them reading? Can those elements be carried over to a sequel? Can you pick-up, once more, the same rhythm and cadence of the first book, the same atmosphere and voice, while also making it fresh and advancing the series in important and, most of all, entertaining ways?

    The biggest difference I see between a single, stand-alone novel and a series is that while a single novel deals with a a story arc, and with character arcs, a series expands that. Each successive sequel must contain it's own, internal arc, yes, but now it must also extend an even larger arc that is not resolved in each book, but is carried over throughout the series. Likewise, the arc of recurring characters must also extend across the series. While some conflicts must be resolved in each book, others must be carried over. And these extended arcs must by expanded in realistic, believable ways. There are television series on the air now who use old, dried-up soap-opera tactics for extending story arcs, plainly transparent artificial constructs to make a plot-line carry over several episodes. These blatantly manipulative "plotting devices" insult me, and therefore they anger me. I can only imagine others feel the same way. I don't want to insult or anger my readers, so I better make damn sure that my extended plot-lines come tight and smart and believable.

    In video game design, there are four levels of opponents a user must face. There are Pawns, or nuisance opponents that present obstacles but little more than that. These are the little mushrooms or strawberries or ghosts or whatever that could kill you if they hit you head-on, but are easily dispatched with a single shot or bop on the head or other similarly simple action. Then there are the Fighters, the ones that, themselves, track you, follow you and shoot at you. They are also fairly easily dispatched as long as you are wily and don't get hit first. Next, there is the Boss, who much like the fighter can track you and shoot at you, but who also must take more than one hit in order to defeat. Then, finally, there is the Super-boss. The Super-boss is the hardest yet to kill. He is smart, mobile, heavily armed and heavily protected. Killing him is not a straightforward proposition, you must make use of some trick or special ability or some such rare commodity to defeat this villain.

    Writing a series is much the same. There is the immediate plot-line of the current book, the obstacle (which does not have to be a human enemy, perhaps a disease or impending tornado, etc.) which must be overcome within the current plot-line, being resolved by the end of the book itself. Then there is the small-arc plot-line - an obstacle that recurs over a wider arc than just one book, but not, perhaps, the entire series. This plot-line can take two, three, even four volumes to be resolved. And finally the overarching series plot-line, the primary question of all questions that cannot be answered so easily, but whose solution must be found by the final book in the series.

    These are the series' that grab and hold my attention, and I imagine most readers as well. This, I think, makes a great starting point when developing a series. Please feel free to share, via comments, below, your thoughts or ideas on other things to incorporate into a successful series.

WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?

    We all know it. Like the demon possessing the man from Gadara, it is Legion, and it goes by a hundred different names. The bog; the swamp; the stairway to nowhere; the wall; the well; the pit; the wasteland; the middle part; etc. It is that part of our story past the setup and the inciting incident, but before the build to the climax. It's the middle part of our book in which the story must be carried forward, but we have no earthly idea what to do with it. Understandably, the opening and inciting incident of out book gets a lot of attention - often it was the idea that sparked us to write this book to begin with. Generally the climax and denouement of our story has gotten at least some focus, as well - we've at least imagined variations on how to bring our story to a close. But the middle part rarely gets much thought until you're there. And then, you're stuck.

    Generally I find this is a great time to introduce complications into your story, subplots, if you will, as we discussed earlier this month on the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog. But what kind of subplot could we introduce? We've given our main plot a lot of thought, now suddenly we have to come up with another?

    I've heard the advice before, and though I've never had occasion to use, it, it's an interesting thought. Think of the worst thing that could happen in relation to your story...and then make it happen and see how your characters react. If you've set up a murder mystery in which an innocent man is imprisoned forma murder he didn't commit, ask yourself, after all the setup and inciting incident, what's the worst thing that could happen? Maybe he gets shanked in prison by someone connected to the victim; maybe his six-year-old daughter is kidnapped by a disgruntled relative of the victim; maybe he is visited in prison by a US Marshal and we discover that not only has he been living under Witness Security, but because of the arrest they are cutting him off. Anyone of these twists can eat up a lot of pages to bring around, meanwhile still advancing your main plot.

    I keep telling myself one of these days I'm going to try this in one of my books. Unfortunately up to this point my stories have been pretty tightly scripted, with not a lot of room for experimentation like that. But if anyone out there has tried this trick, or plans to after reading this blog, my readers and I would love to hear about how it all came out in the comments, below! Drop us a line.