Sequel Writing

[mmerriam]

This is something new for me. I've never written a sequel before (and am still a bit concerned that I'm writing the sequel to a novel I haven't sold yet).

It seems the vampire novel I was poking at earlier is really the second book in the Monster-Hunting Barista series of novels (remember: I said it was the most commercial novel I had written). On the one hand, this is not unexpected. I knew when I finished Dead Brew I would probably be writing more novels featuring Sharisha Zajicova. I didn't expect to be jumping into the next one right away, but you write the thing you've got.

Which means I'm learning a new skill: recapping the incidents in the previous novel. I need to do this so that when they sell, readers won't be totally out to sea if they accidentally pick up the second book first. But it has to be subtle, concise, and small enough not to annoy anyone who read the first book. All that those readers would need is small refresher.

This writing gig really is a never-ending quest to learn the next valuable skill-set to add to your toolbox.

Comments

[morvenwestfield.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to get a handle on that myself. Charlaine Harris recaps a lot in her Sookie Stackhouse series, on which True Blood is loosely based. Reading a few of her books in short succession, though, I found the recapping was getting to me a bit, but I think that's because I was catching up all at once. I think that if I had read the books as published, with let's say, a year between them, I wouldn't have noticed it as much because I wouldn't have remembered as much.

Recently I started listening to an audiobook version of Christopher Moore's "You Suck" and then realized that I should have read "Bloodsucking Fiends" first. So, I stopped, got the audiobook for BF, and listened to that. I thought he handled it well because I didn't even realize I was getting information from a previous book, though I did wonder why he wasn't going into more detail about those characters ;-)

Yes, keep us informed! I'm curious.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I really want to avoid just dumping a lot of information on readers. It needs to happen subtly and naturally. Time to learn something new as a writer.