How a Sequel Works with a Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Sequels are the emotional glue holding scenes together.

Before I dive it, I’m over at The Insecure Writer’s Support Group today, chatting about the dangers of empty dialogue. Come on over and check it out!

Now, on to today’s regularly scheduled post…

The sequel trips up a lot of writers, even when they know what it is. The most common problem is thinking it has the same nature (and structure) as a scene, so they try to write it as one.

And it fails.

The pacing flatlines, there’s no goal, and often, writers twist themselves into knots trying to add a goal, motivation, and conflict to a sequel, trying to “make it work.”

How to Write Scenes (and What Qualifies as a Scene)

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Scenes are the building blocks of fiction, but many writers struggle with what they actually are, and how to write one.

For something so fundamental to writing a novel as the scene, scenes are a frequent source of frustration for many writers. Even when you generally know what a scene is, fully understanding how to write it can be confusing.

Common questions abound:

• What exactly is a scene?
• What does a scene need to have?
• How long is a scene?
• Are scenes and chapters the same thing?

Let’s look at what a scene is and how it fits into the larger novel:

The Difference Between a Sequel and a Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Last week I wrote about scenes and plotting, and a commentor asked about sequels. While answering the question, I realized I’d never written specifically about sequels, so let’s fix that today.

Sequels are one of the more misunderstood and confusing aspects of fiction. They’re just as important to a story as a scene, but they don’t get nearly the same amount of attention or analysis from a How-To standpoint.

6 Things to Consider Before Writing a Series

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A great series is both popular and profitable, but it takes a little more work (and thought) than a stand-alone novel. Balancing what readers love about the series with keeping it fresh can be challenging, as can deciding how much backstory to rehash each book to get readers up to speed, or how many books a series will have.

Even if you prefer to pants your novel, a little thought before you start your series can save you a lot of hassles later. And for outliners and planners—having a solid foundation to work with will make writing the individual books that much easier.

Take Two: Challenges of Sequel Writing (and ways to overcome them)

By Stefanie Gaither, @stefaniegaither

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Writing a sequel is both fun and a little scary. It's great to spend more time in a world we love, but book two is notoriously harder than book one, with its own set of challenges. Please help me welcome Stefanie Gaither to the lecture hall today to share some of those challenges (and how to overcome them).

Stefanie has done everything from working on a chicken farm to running a small business— with a lot of really odd jobs in between— but since the release of her debut novel, Falls the Shadow, she's more or less settled on the job title of author. And between writing and trying to keep up with one very wild baby girl, she manages to keep very happily busy.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Indie Bound

Take it away Stefanie...

Take Two: When to Start a Sequel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy 

So many books are series-based these days (especially in some genres), which can leave a lot of writers asking the same question--when is a good time to start my sequel?

I asked my agent the same thing before she sent my manuscript out on submission way back in 2008. She'd advised that I prepare a synopsis for the next two books so she'd have something to show editors, but to start on a new, non-sequel book in the meantime. Her reasoning was that if the first book didn't sell, I wouldn't have wasted time on a sequel that also wouldn't sell, and would instead be ready with a new book.

10 Things to Remember About Sequels

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy


Writing a sequel is hard. I mean, really hard. I had no idea the first time I wrote one, and figured book two would be just as easy as book one. It was my first sequel, and I learned a lot doing it. If you haven't faced one yet (or you have and it made you want to pull your hair out) here are some tips on dealing with book two.

The Trouble With Triples: Writing Trilogies

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

When I first started writing my middle grade fantasy, The Shifter: The Healing Wars (Balzer & Bray, 2009), I had no idea it was going to be a trilogy.

I’d never written a trilogy before, but halfway through the story I saw the bigger story arc that my protagonist, Nya, could be part of if I nudged her in that direction.

I made some notes, finished the book, and sent it off to agents with a little, “this story stands alone but could continue as a trilogy” statement at the bottom of the query.

Eight months later, I sold a trilogy. What the heck was I gonna do now?

Going Once, Going Twice… Writing Sequels

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Sequels are hard. Seriously hard. Bang-your-head-against-the-wall-hard. But they’re also amazing learning experiences because you really need to master some pretty tricky writing techniques to pull them off. Like…

Backstory
You thought dealing with backstory in a regular book was a pain? Try writing a sequel where the entire first book is backstory. And you have to get that information into the sequel so those who didn’t read book one can keep up, but not so much that it bogs down the story and bores return readers. After several failed attempts, I finally found a system that worked for me.

Quiet Time: Handling Non-Action Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

We all know we’re supposed to keep our stakes escalating and our scene moving forward, but too much too fast can wear our readers out. How do you handle the quieter, in-between scenes where the world isn’t coming to an end and things have slowed down?

Whoa, There
Structurally speaking, the scenes between the scenes are called sequels. The time for the protagonist to reflect, absorb, decide, and react to what has just happened in a scene. Sometimes they’re a single line, sometimes they’re pages long. They help control pacing (and more on that tomorrow), but they also give you a chance to remind the reader why everything that’s going on is important.

Trouble is long sequels usually equal a bored reader, because nothing is happening.

Dealing With Your Character's Emotional Baggage: Handling Backstory in a Sequel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Backstory in a sequel is harder to do than regular backstory. I think it's because there's an entire book out there that colors how everything in the new book is perceived, and without knowing that first book, things aren't as clear. It's not just bits and pieces of history driving your characters and making them feel more fleshed out, it's major stuff that directly affects the plot of the next book. And worse, it's stuff a lot of readers will already know.

While writing book two, I treated book one as plain old backstory. I'd just mention the details that felt relevant, and do it in the same way I'd do any other history. This was working for a while, but it was very easy to bring up far to much about book one. I found myself re-hashing a lot, or worse, relying on book one to understand book two.

And that's where the key to sequel backstory lies.

Everything New is Old Again: The Sequel

I've been editing Book Two all week (it still has no title) and I'm about to hand it over to my critique group this weekend. To be honest, I have concerns.

Not that the book sucks, (I don't think it does) but that it doesn't live up to The Shifter, the first book in the trilogy. I'd bet that most writers run into a similar worry when they work on the sequel to their debut novel. How can we not? It's a lot of responsibility. It took us a long time (probably) to write the first one, and now we have a contract hanging over us and we have to produce. It's pretty nerve-wracking.

So here's my problem:

The Shifter has a lot of depth. The protag, Nya, is really stuck between a rock and a hard place and she faces some pretty tough moral quandaries. The stakes are personal and high, and all throughout the book, no matter what choice she has to make, someone is going to get hurt. You really feel for the poor gal.

Book Two is a rollicking adventure for sure, and Nya gets into just as many pickles, but what she faces this time around is different. Her eyes have been opened and her take on the bigger picture has changed based on her experiences in The Shifter. She understands herself better, and she knows what she's willing to do to get what she wants. And she doesn't quibble over some of the darker choices like she used to.

I suppose I could tweak and set up Book Two to follow the same structure as the first, but I'm reluctant to do that. Why? Because readers will have seen that already. They'll have seen Nya caught in impossible situations and they'll know what she does to handle it. I don't think they'll want to see her do it again. I think they'll want to see her do something else.

But...

I think they still want her to be Nya.

So what I've done is let Nya be Nya, and give readers a story that captures them like the first book does (or will come October, finger crossed), but lets them see how Nya handles a whole new set of troubles. I've shoved her out of the comfort zone she finds herself in at the end of The Shifter, and forced her to face the consequences of her actions. Yes, this was mean, but I have to prepare her for the things she'll face in Book Three. (But not in a "middle movie" syndrome kinda way). She'll thank me for it later, really.

I'll be on pins and needles until the crits come back, but I think it'll turn out okay.