Starting a Sequel

[MaraFox006]

I'm starting a Sequel to my first book. I was wondering if I had to recap part of what happened in the first one or if I could just continue on writing.

(Your imput will be much appreciated.)

 

[chrispenycate]

Yes, as someone living beyond the general distribution networks I have frequently ended up reading a series in the wrong order, or missing out on the first part until it has gone out of print, so some information about the characters and situation is very welcome. I even mentioned this problem recently (in http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/1366203-post14.html ) but have not found an efficient response.

Then there are all those people who get their books from the public library (lucky so and sos) and don't have a memory adapted to maintaining the story between their ears until the series is finished. How would it be if no-one bought books until the trilogy or whatever is terminated? Your contract with the publisher would be terminated considerably sooner.

Certainly CJ Cherryh has done some series where she pays no attention to the connections, but simply cuts up an over large volume into several smaller ones. Don't try and read Cyteen in the wrong order.

I don't know the answer, if there is one, and I don't think many authors have found totally convincing ones. Last week in Desperate Housewives? Eddings' prophecies from the point of view of different religions? A 'do you remember' conversation between principal characters? Or just making each book self contained enough that it can be taken on its own, without previous volumes or missing too much, like Bujold's Miles books?

Not much help, am I? But I don't think you can just ignore your potential readership who live in non-optimum situations.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Well, this really all depends on how the series is actually played out. Is it like the way Piers Anthony writes HIS novels, where each volume can be a standalone and he can move onto the next without worrying about tying the last one in?


Or is it more like an ongoing story, like series' tend far more often to be, where there's a key stopping point at the end of each volume that needs to be picked up after?


Each type of series has its own strategy and its own way of being written. If it's a loose plot where the world and style are the only thing tying the series together, then you really need to make no more mention of previous volumes. If the story ties it together, then yes, it CAN help to reconsider bringing certain points back out of the predecessors, even if it's just a brief, "Do you remember when....?" between two or more characters the way David Eddings was so fond of? (RIP.)

 

[Murtagh's_Muse]

I personally find it a little annoying when authors recap at the beginning of a sequel. I would say, give your readers the benefit of the doubt that they did in fact pay enough attention to remember what's going on. If they didn't, it's their loss and they can always skim back through the first book. But I personally like diving straight into the new material.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

When I was about twelve I read a book which I quite enjoyed. I was young and I took it as an isolated one off book. The concept of a series never entered my head and I tend not to read prologues or dedications - (see my posts on book covers).

Years later I started reading a series of of about seven titles none of which rang a bell. Imagine how I felt when I started the last one only to find it was the one I read years before.

I'd give it a mention but not in a prologue.

 

[chrispenycate]

Well, this really all depends on how the series is actually played out. Is it like the way Piers Anthony writes HIS novels, where each volume can be a standalone and he can move onto the next without worrying about tying the last one in?


Each type of series has its own strategy and its own way of being written. If it's a loose plot where the world and style are the only thing tying the series together, then you really need to make no more mention of previous volumes. If the story ties it together, then yes, it CAN help to reconsider bringing certain points back out of the predecessors, even if it's just a brief, "Do you remember when....?" between two or more characters the way David Eddings was so fond of? (RIP.)

Not all of Piers Anthony's works, by any means. While it might be just about irrelevant where you enter Xanth, the Cluster series or the Mode books, try reading the Split infinity books in the wrong order, or OX first of the omnivore trilogy (both of which I did). I'm happy that I got the space tyrant more or less in its conceived sequence.

And Eddings generally put a thumping great preface to each of his volumes, from the point of view of a civil service, or a priesthood, or someone out of the main stream, so it wouldn't annoy such fans as had read the previous volumes, but would give a minimal base to any who hadn't.

I personally find it a little annoying when authors recap at the beginning of a sequel. I would say, give your readers the benefit of the doubt that they did in fact pay enough attention to remember what's going on. If they didn't, it's their loss and they can always skim back through the first book. But I personally like diving straight into the new material.

That's a 'let them eat cake' argument. Admittedly, the growth of on-line book sales has reduced (but not yet eliminated; E-literature could remove the problem totally, so those of us who predate electronic distribution will be incomprehensible to the youth who expect everything to be always available, everywhere) the risk of a book going out of print before your local distributor gets round to order any, or you have a trip back to an English speaking zone.

"Ah, a minority market; not worth writing for them." Except that expats are generally well educated and frequently readers – after all, what else is there to do but read and listen to the Beeb world service? – and can you afford to tgnore any potential customers?

 

[The Judge]

Most of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series are effective standalones, although it's helpful to have read earlier books in order to understand the characters, and he makes no concessions to new readers. But there is one book -- Lords and Ladies -- which follows very closely on the heels of another. At the beginning of that one he has an author's note which actually says virtually nothing about the preceding volume, but does give us a little back story on the three main characters. In his words "This one is different. I can't ignore the history of what has gone before."

My intention is a brief synopsis like a cross between "Previously on Twin Peaks" and the "For new readers" blurb at the beginning of serials in women's magazines. That would give the barest of necessary facts so we don't have to have any "As you know, Bob" moments.

 

[Ursa major]

It's possibly best to avoid the "Why don't you go and read the previous book: I didn't slave over it so you could get away with reading a couple of paragraphs here" approach.


Actually, I have, in the past, written just such an intro to my WIP2 (a sequel)**, but I wouldn't dream of letting it get into print (assuming WIP2 ever gets published, that is).

Now if WIP2 (and WIP1) were meant to be comic novels, I might have been tempted....




** - In the days before I found this place, which is a much safer destination for such foolery than a novel's introduction.

 

[The Judge]

I see my synopsis more as a "I'm sorry you haven't read Book The First, take my word it's really worth it, but just so you don't feel too left out in the opening chapters of this one, here's some of what you missed." In fact, I think that'd work just nicely as an intro for it!

How are you handling it in WIP2, then, Ursa, if you are eschewing the intro route?

 

[Ursa major]

Even if I had wanted to include the "call the reader lazy" approach, I no longer have the "opportunity" to do so.

Originally, the books were structured so that there was an up-front framing story within which the main story (~90% of the books) occurred. Without going too much into details, about half the framing story consisted of 1st person present tense chapters** (situated at the beginning and at various points within the book) where the POV character addresses her readers*** (even telling the odd joke ).

I decided a couple of years back that these chapters not only gave too much away (even if only indirectly), but were slowing the books down and making them far too bloated. (And it was all too complicated and diversionary, particularly when set against the benefits.)


The concept remains, but until the end of the last book, it's treated as if very mucg incidental to the main story.


** - Which were fun to write, which is probably why they remained in the books for far too long.

*** - Including the other main character of the framing story. (See: I said it was way too complicated.)

 

[anthorn]

I like the What has come before style ala R Scott Bakker

 

[The Judge]

That's how you're not doing it, ursa, but what's in its place? Are you info-dumping elegantly? Or just ignoring previous stuff and trusting to new readers to pick up the important points as they read?

(Interesting use of the framing device, by the way. It doesn't sound too complex, but I can appreciate how it would slow things down.)

 

[Ursa major]

At the risk (or the reality) of thread hijacking....

I let the main story tell itself. I reveal a part of the framing story at the end of WIP1 (and in only 13 manuscript pages out of 450**). Obviously, WIP2 begins, as it did before the changes, with the knowledge that there is a framing story, but its implementation is low-key, acknowledging that it exist, but little more than that.

Some of the non-1st person parts of WIP1 are now in WIP2 and WIP3, each time intruducing an extra character, both times at the end of the book.

As originally conceived and implemented, one of the main pruposes of the framing story was meant to take what could be considered*** mostly standalone stories and bring them together. (Yes, there are main-story links between the books, but I didn't want to leave too many obvious loose ends.)

It seems obvious now, but the best place to put a link into a sequel is at the end of a book, which is what I've now done: that's where the (much reduced) bulk of the framing story resides. (Note that the framing story had other purposes: one of them, now dropped, was to provide a skeleton on which to hand the main story; this required some (short) chapters which had little other purpose. All of this is now gone.)



** - In one draft, it used to be 72 out of 669. (And bear in mind that WIP3 at one time had 850 manuscript pages. )

*** - By this, I mean that the main story seems to come to some sort of resolution at the end of each book, so they are only standalone in terms of their endings but not in terms of their beginnings. (Well, you need to have read WIP1 to get the most out of WIP3, and WIP4 brings everything together. WIP2 very briefly refers back to WIP1 - the one common character muses vaguely about something that has gone before for a couple of paragraphs - but it's independent in terms of its plot.)

.

 

[chrispenycate]

Another point on the 'read them in the wrong order' curve; I remember a thread on the Mark Robson corner, which I have been totally unable to find (the thread, silly, not the corner) where he talked about his publisher not wanting to put numbers on the books in his series, for fear the public wouldn't by them unless they started with the first.

Now this would multiply up the slightly confused block of belligerent bibliophiles if it was not possible to take a side entrance into the story.

Obviously, commercial forces go the other way if the cover can scream "The sequel to the New York Times best selling…" but mere statistics tell us this is not going to be a frequent occurrence.

Nobody likes the 'previously in on and around Desperate Househusbands" approach, but are we reduced to that to bump start a sequel? I think even a dedicated preface would be preferable to the "Do you remember when we were attacked by the winged barbarian Voscone warriors last winter? Of course you do; it was only a few months ago, and it's why you're in the hands of the Healers now, but I'm going to tell you anyway." technique.

Introducing a new character towards the beginning of each book, who needs bringing up to speed as the newly acquired readership? Hi, I'm Bunny, and this is Jeb; we're the finest dragon hunters in the republic of Skointavia, as demonstrate by the quality of our crossbows and magically fireproof armour." Perhaps not, especially if they were principal characters in the previous tome.

How about a minstrel singing the heroics of the previous volume. I have it on reasonable authority that a majority of readers' eyes glaze over and skip anything which is remotely poetic-looking (I had developed a dragon bard, who could get me out of flashbacks by singing part of the back story when I was informed of this natural automatic filter; pretty strange, really, when you consider that oral tradition, the root of all tale telling, used rhythm and rhyme to fix the story in listeners' heads, and we still react physiologically to it today.) so only those desperate for information would indulge. It doesn't have to be great poetry, after all; nobody said he was a good minstrel.

Or the local broadsheet nailed to the fortress door. "They've got it all wrong; It wasn't even a grelpin, just a lesser shroil, and that clown? He got into the deepest ditch he could find, and waited for it all to finish before going looking for the reporters."

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

There was a time when I didn't worry about whether readers would remember what happened in my previous books, or even if readers would pick up a book out of sequence. I just went ahead and pretty much told the story from the point where it had broken off, with only a tiny amount of explanation about the events of the previous book. But then, the books were shorter and the plots correspondingly simpler, and I didn't feel like it would take readers so long to get up to speed.

With my last book, I felt that a recap was, if not absolutely necessary for those who had waited long between that one and the previous, at least very helpful, and for those who picked it up cold, essential. So I included a synopsis of THS. What I did not want to do was spend too much time during the early chapters recapping events. As a reader, I don't mind that if I've read the first book, because it's a little like revisiting old friends, but if I pick up a book mid-series one of two things usually happens: I become bored waiting for the book to get moving while everyone reminisces about old times, or I get the idea that the book I am reading takes place after all of the interesting things happened. Since I hate that as a reader, I naturally did not want to inflict that sort of thing on my own readers. A synopsis can be skipped, by those who do not choose to read it, but it is there to give readers that choice.

Which is a long way of saying, I think it depends on the book/series.

 

[HareBrain]

Does anyone know of a novel which actually has a "Previously on Twin Peaks" style of recap -- a disjointed selection of mini-scenes (maybe just two-line dialogue exchanges) that give some idea what's going on and who's involved, but is intended to intrigue as much as inform.

Not saying it would be a good idea, and I'm not even sure how it would work in a non-visual medium. Just wondered if anyone had made it work.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

I think Teresa has it about right.

When I pick up a book in a shop I usually go on the blurb on the cover (probably the only time it gets looked at by me). I check for publisher information which usually list previous titles and other works together with the synopsis on the back. Now if that tweaks my interest, I look for the first title in the series.

Then it gets complicated.

If from reading the two or three blurbs from the previous books (you always find the first book in the series last - sods law) things seem active, then I might buy the first and see how it goes.

If in the third book, the blurb implies that

Sid Vengepurple is still battling with his inner demons and the threat of the Splogwand Empire of Blatwogorghst VII is ever present.

I assume what I'm looking at is, in fact, one large monster of a book which seems to be going nowhere and I give the whole thing a miss.

However if I happen to pick up the first title in the series first, I tend to judge it purely on the one book and don't look at the rest.

There was a time when, if I liked the look of it, I would buy everything in the series.

Sadly, I fell foul of that process recently with Trudi Canavan's White Priestess series, I now just buy the titles in sequence.

 

[Boneman]

Does anyone know of a novel which actually has a "Previously on Twin Peaks" style of recap -- a disjointed selection of mini-scenes (maybe just two-line dialogue exchanges) that give some idea what's going on and who's involved, but is intended to intrigue as much as inform.

Not saying it would be a good idea, and I'm not even sure how it would work in a non-visual medium. Just wondered if anyone had made it work.[/QUOTE]

Ok, Poalini does it in the Eragon books: There, I admit I've read them, but they're not mine, honest - they belong to my Son, and they're only in my house until he gets his own place...

It's five pages in 'Eldest' synopsising 'Eragon' and here's an interesting thing: the jacket sleeve does a far better job of interesting me, than the synopsis. It's as though the sleeve is for those who've read the first book and the synopsis is for those who haven't. Lemme show you the jacket:

"Eragon and his dragon, Saphira have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to...." and so on.

That's a great synopsis, one that should make me go out and buy the first book. But, personally (and I accept that I have read the first book, so wouldn't be that interested, and I'm trying to see it from a 'new' reader's perspective) the five pages of exposition are mind-numbingly boring: here's the first paragraph:

"Eragon - a fifteen-year-old farmboy - is shocked when a polished blue stone appears before him in the range of mountains known as the spine. Eragon takes the stone to the farm where he lives with his Uncle, Garrow, and his cousin, Roran. Garrow and his late wife, Marian, have raised Eragon. Nothing is known of his father; his mother, Selena, was Garrow's sister and has not been seen since Eragon's birth."

Then it goes into the history of the dragons and the elves and the land (something which was only touched on in storytelling, in the book) and it's incredibly tedious to read. No it doesn't intrigue, and doesn't work as a prologue at all.

My own thought is that each book should be a stand-alone, even if it is three books telling one story. Having a synopsis at the beginning of books 2 & 3 is a bit of a cop out. And I'm not sure why a publisher would do it - don't they want a punter to pick up book 2, think 'wow! this is good, I'll hafta read book 1 first'? They exist only to sell books, why risk a sale for the sake of a recap synopsis? Or are they thinking 'well, selling book 2 is good enough, let's tell them what happened in book 1'?


ps: my own trilogy will just pick up the story where I left it at the end of the last book (even though there will be good resolutions at the end of book 1&2...)

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

As I said before, I DO think previous volumes of a series should be recapped in later volumes-but as I didn't say then, NOT NECESSARILY AT THE BEGINNING.


I think the best example of what I mean would, again, have to mention David Eddings. He uses his characters to sort of recap certain key points of previous volumes of his stories by way of conversation, such as, "Do you remember when....." and such like that. In that way it won't turn a reader off who HAS read previous volumes-if used in moderation of course-but if done in the right, delicate balance, it can give a reader who didn't read previous volumes clues of what had gone on.


Or you could take a page out of Piers Anthony's book-if you'll pardon the expression, haha-and make a "volume standalone" series like Xanth or Incarnations of Immortality, where the only aspects even tying the volumes together are the setting and, perhaps, a few characters. I personally find those to be the most fun both to read and write, actually....

 

[HareBrain]

Boneman, the Eragon example doesn't sound like what I meant. I meant a few heavily cut-down scenes or dialogues that appeared in the previous book, with no attempt at a linking narrative, but which in combination would suggest parts of the story that will be important in the current volume. (Edit: exactly like a TV series, if it's still not clear.)

But I've been trying to think what I would include in a "Previously, in The Fellowship of the Ring" section at the start of The Two Towers, and it would be really hard to pull off.