The problem of sequel-first readers.

Astro Pen said:
I'm sitting down to frame up a sequel to one of my books. But here's the problem.
I've never written a sequel before and I know that many readers are likely to read the sequel first. They shouldn't but they will.
So how does one go about giving them enough about how we got to the start of the sequel without an info dump that will bore the pants off those who have read book one?
Having spent a lot of time carefully crafting the characters you cant really do that quickly in the new opening. Particularly not while maintaining the writing style and flow of the first.
It may, of course, flow off the pen quite naturally once one starts but it definitely feels like it is going to be a 'tricky' thing to do.
I know some of you have done this already, so how did you tackle it?
Thanks
AP
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I presume the reader needs some form of catch up, so I try to drip in key points as necessary, the way you would with general infodumping.

Even still, as for readers picking up the wrong sequel, I was astonished to see how often this happened with my Destroyer series, especially when I gave away free copies at the beginning. Even though people were getting it through Amazon, which clearly states whether it's book 1, 2, or 3 of a trilogy, I still got a lot of people not download book 1 and instead just get one of the sequels, then give a bad review because they didn't understand what was going on and accused me of skipping the plot!
 
Another thing about this sequel business. The discussions I've seen tend to focus on setting and plot, with conversation mainly about how much to recapitulate on worldbuilding.

But what about characters?

I was struck by this because I'm reading through Vol 1 of my Trouvères series and I came across a statement that Character B knows that when Character A's face goes expressionless, he's about to do something rash and probably violent. I unashamedly swiped this from Hammett, but I clean forgot that I set this up early in Vol 1. I plan to make use of it in Vol 2 and certainly in 3.

So, do I need to somehow catch the reader up on the various mannerisms and tics of my characters? If not, then how is that any different from plot or setting? OTOH, maybe I *do* need to make a nod somehow. There he goes again, said Character B; that blank look means somebody had better duck. It could be slotted in. But it doesn't need a whole prologue.
 
sknox said:
Another thing about this sequel business. The discussions I've seen tend to focus on setting and plot, with conversation mainly about how much to recapitulate on worldbuilding.

But what about characters?

I was struck by this because I'm reading through Vol 1 of my Trouvères series and I came across a statement that Character B knows that when Character A's face goes expressionless, he's about to do something rash and probably violent. I unashamedly swiped this from Hammett, but I clean forgot that I set this up early in Vol 1. I plan to make use of it in Vol 2 and certainly in 3.

So, do I need to somehow catch the reader up on the various mannerisms and tics of my characters? If not, then how is that any different from plot or setting? OTOH, maybe I *do* need to make a nod somehow. There he goes again, said Character B; that blank look means somebody had better duck. It could be slotted in. But it doesn't need a whole prologue.
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Well; are they still doing that? Or is the catch up about what has importantly changed?
 
The Big Peat said:
I implore all writers of series, be they one long story broken up between books or many interlinked stories, to just start your subsequent books naturally. Introduce an interesting situation in which a character has to act in a way that will demonstrate who they are, and where their actions will lead to the book's issues. Doing so has the most universal appeal, and you can still slide in reminders.
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You are 100% a monster! :alien:

Do you have some examples of where this was done well and where it was done poorly? I'm trying to think of a sequel i enjoyed where the recap was so smooth i missed it.
 
ColGray said:
You are 100% a monster! :alien:

Do you have some examples of where this was done well and where it was done poorly? I'm trying to think of a sequel i enjoyed where the recap was so smooth i missed it.
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Whichever book I started of Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy was formed of the character sitting there dreamily of the past. No bueno. Ditto Kristin Cashore's Bitterblue.

I might have been more forgiving due to being younger but the Eddings' The Ruby Knight captured me immediately, despite starting with a scene in which they discussed what had happened in the last book of the first book. But because there were multiple characters, and because their immediate problem was linked to their big problem, and because the characters were funny and colourful, I fell for it.

I have mixed but mostly negative feelings of Sam Hawke's decision to start book 2 of her duology with the characters watching a play that had been made about book 1. On the one hand, ambitious and novel. On the other... well, for one thing, I soon got utterly lost. I also got quite bored
 
sknox said:
Another thing about this sequel business. The discussions I've seen tend to focus on setting and plot, with conversation mainly about how much to recapitulate on worldbuilding.

But what about characters?

I was struck by this because I'm reading through Vol 1 of my Trouvères series and I came across a statement that Character B knows that when Character A's face goes expressionless, he's about to do something rash and probably violent. I unashamedly swiped this from Hammett, but I clean forgot that I set this up early in Vol 1. I plan to make use of it in Vol 2 and certainly in 3.

So, do I need to somehow catch the reader up on the various mannerisms and tics of my characters? If not, then how is that any different from plot or setting? OTOH, maybe I *do* need to make a nod somehow. There he goes again, said Character B; that blank look means somebody had better duck. It could be slotted in. But it doesn't need a whole prologue.
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An idea I came across in one of Jim Butcher's posts on writing was the idea of character tags. A set of descriptors that would be attached to a particular character. First time you see the character in the book, it'd go a bit into depth about them to jog your memory. There after, it would use one of those descriptors if it was the first we'd seen the character for a couple of scenes. Just that little memory jogger.

Big fan of it, both for trying to make remembering characters easier, and for the importance it put on reintroducing them.
 
Yes, that for sure. I try to have a variety of way to tag, including physical appearance (easier to do when you have more than just humans), tics and mannerisms, and verbal tics.

Must be used with care, though. I well remember when I read Dune aloud. I'd read it on my own, loved the book, and so read it to my wife (I would read aloud to her, back in the day). It wasn't long before "he barked" became more than just tiresome. Herbert simply overused that tag, to the point where I would change it on the fly as I read. The moral there is, every good idea can be made bad, one way or another.
 
I look at the sequel information much in the same way as I look at the original that has to have a bit of backstory. Punching in pieces as they fit into the narrative. Too much bunched together is going to drag the present story down and if you put the two side by side and read them all at the same time the reader might zone out because all that stuff is no longer new to them. There has to be a balance for both readers. The less you tell of what happened before(casual mentions)the more likely the new reader will accept it and maybe even be enticed to read the previous story.
 
My take on books/stories about the same main characters or characters is that they should be written to be read in any order and make sense, unless it is a duology or trilogy. If I find it is not, then I pass on the whole damn thing. The author is demanding more of me as a reader than I am willing to give.

Just my two cents.
 
sknox said:
Yes, that for sure. I try to have a variety of way to tag, including physical appearance (easier to do when you have more than just humans), tics and mannerisms, and verbal tics.

Must be used with care, though. I well remember when I read Dune aloud. I'd read it on my own, loved the book, and so read it to my wife (I would read aloud to her, back in the day). It wasn't long before "he barked" became more than just tiresome. Herbert simply overused that tag, to the point where I would change it on the fly as I read. The moral there is, every good idea can be made bad, one way or another.
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I feel like Robert Jordan had a similar issue to Herbert. Oh look, a female character is huffy and put out. A male character is lying. The knight is declaring. etc.

One of the features i adore in ProWritingAid is that you can run a report to see your dialogue tags. Seeing that i've got little johnny mumbles, jenny only-says and susie sneers is a helpful roadmap to know what i need to adjust/fix.
 
Even for right-order readers, a certain amount of recapping is good as they may have read the previous book some time ago. I've seen it done by slipping extra lines into the first couple of chapters rather than infodumping the whole lot in one go, and the entire plot of the first book doesn't need summarising.
 
Btw, I am one of those pesky sequel-first readers, sometimes. I often get into a series by finding a random volume at the library - if I enjoy it, I go out and buy the first volume.
 
Fiberglass Cyborg said:
Btw, I am one of those pesky sequel-first readers, sometimes. I often get into a series by finding a random volume at the library - if I enjoy it, I go out and buy the first volume.
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Same. I bougth Absolution Gap at the airport, not knowing it was last in a series. Read the rest after that with no trouble. Also read Murderbot books out of order.

A well written book should be good on its own.
 
I'll break this down by plot, characters, and world building.

If plot arcs from the first novel are necessary to understand a following novel, I'd feel that the first novel was incomplete. If a first novel leaves off with major outstanding threads, I will feel cheated and I will not buy the sequels. In general, a one sentence recap should suffice.

If characters and their actions are not understandable from the current situations presented in the sequel, I feel that there are characterization issues in the sequel. I should not feel surprised about how a character acts simply because I haven't read a prior novel. Again, at most, a one sentence recap should be needed.

World building is the most challenging area, especially in fantasy and science fiction. This is the area where the writer will need to reintroduce the core elements of the world to the reader. I think this is important for both the sequel first reader and for the reader who may have had a long delay since reading the initial novel. In this case, a full scene to reintroduce the world would be warranted. This should avoid repeating a scene that happened in the previous novel and, instead, present the necessary information using a new scenario.
 
Wayne Mack said:
I'll break this down by plot, characters, and world building.

If plot arcs from the first novel are necessary to understand a following novel, I'd feel that the first novel was incomplete. If a first novel leaves off with major outstanding threads, I will feel cheated and I will not buy the sequels. In general, a one sentence recap should suffice.

If characters and their actions are not understandable from the current situations presented in the sequel, I feel that there are characterization issues in the sequel. I should not feel surprised about how a character acts simply because I haven't read a prior novel. Again, at most, a one sentence recap should be needed.

World building is the most challenging area, especially in fantasy and science fiction. This is the area where the writer will need to reintroduce the core elements of the world to the reader. I think this is important for both the sequel first reader and for the reader who may have had a long delay since reading the initial novel. In this case, a full scene to reintroduce the world would be warranted. This should avoid repeating a scene that happened in the previous novel and, instead, present the necessary information using a new scenario.
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It's true, even in a continuity-heavy series that's really a multi-volume novel, I prefer each volume to have a proper setting-up phase at the start and an ending that closes off this phase of the story in a satisfying way. (That's one reason I crashed out of "The Wheel of Time" - some of the middle volumes had neither!)
 
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