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The stand-alone sequel to the IMMUNE series\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Thirteen years have passed since the Medusa plague wiped out nearly 99 percent of the world\u2019s population and pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Climate change triggered by nuclear skirmishes in the last fevered days of civilization decimated agriculture and livestock, and the hardened survivors battle for what few resources remain.<\/em><\/p>\n Rachel Fisher is one of the lucky ones. In her small community in Nebraska, she and her family have access to food, clean water, weapons, and medical care.<\/em><\/p>\n And her 11-year-old son Will is the only child known to have survived infancy since the plague.<\/em><\/p>\n But everything changes when someone comes looking for him. <\/em><\/p>\n *\u00a0* *<\/p>\n Real quick. The Immune<\/em> was about a man looking for his daughter during and in the immediate aftermath of a civilization-ending plague. The Living<\/em> is the sequel, set 13 years later.<\/p>\n Anyway, here are the things I learned. Your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n Writing more than one book in the same story universe requires a certain level of chutzpah. Whether it\u2019s two books or a trilogy or seven-book-ology or a continuing mystery series, you\u2019re telling the reader that it\u2019s going to be worth their while to invest their free time in multiple books set in the same world with at least some of the same characters.<\/p>\n The Immune<\/em> was inspired in part by Stephen King\u2019s The Stand<\/em>, one of the classics of post-apocalyptic fiction, and you don\u2019t see a sequel to that sonofabitch in bookstores, do you? My favorite novel of all time is probably Dennis Lehane\u2019s Mystic River<\/em>, also devoid of a sequel. Hell, even Stephen King admits that the Dark Tower books are really one long novel (and you\u2019re not jumping into that story anywhere but with The Gunslinger).<\/p>\n Think of your five favorite books of all time. Are any of them sequels? Do any of them have sequels? Probably not. Be honest with yourself about whether the sequel needs to exist or if you\u2019re just hiding from the scariness of moving onto a new fictional world. You need to be as committed to this story as you were to the first. In this case, I decided that I had a good enough story to tell, one that was not simply riding on the coattails of its predecessor, one that could stand on its own but also add some depth to the mythology laid out in the first book.<\/p>\n Books are a tough sell these days, and the last thing you want to do is limit your potential audience. I hadn\u2019t planned on writing a sequel when I wrote the first book. When putting together the storyline for The Living<\/em>, I wrestled with how dependent it would be on its predecessor. If you make it too dependent, only folks who read the first would be able to enjoy the second \u2013 that really limits your potential audience.<\/p>\n In the end, I wrote the story to stand alone, sprinkling in enough backstory so anyone could start with this book and not feel lost. Then I asked someone who hadn\u2019t read The Immune<\/em> to read it. When she told me she had no problems understanding the backstory, I knew I was in good shape. Now there are two doors to this fictional universe I created, and a reader can come into it however they like. For a relatively unknown writer like me, the last thing I want to do is make it harder for people to come to my books.<\/p>\n Now before you come at me with your sharpened pieces of avocado toast \u2013 I said Book 2 should probably <\/em>stand alone. You may have a sweeping story arc that\u2019s going to take three or seven or eight hundred books to resolve and a reader absolutely cannot start anywhere but with the first book. Great, fine, you do you.<\/p>\n For those interested in how the sausage was made \u2013 meaning how to do this and make sure you\u2019ve put in just the right amount of backstory, this was a really helpful exercise: I went through the manuscript, plucked out every reference to things that happened in the first book and pasted those into a separate document. I ended up with a two-page synopsis of all the things someone would need to know from The Immune<\/em> without having read it, and it showed me that I had parceled out the pieces of backstory at the best possible moment and in the right order.<\/p>\n Of course, this is going to vary, depending on the story you\u2019re telling and the time frame involved. Your sequel might pick up immediately after the conclusion of the first book or it might pick up six jillion years later. The Living <\/em>is set 13 years after the events of the first book, and so my characters are all older and no longer the shell-shocked survivors who just witnessed the end of the world. They\u2019ve moved onto living their best lives in this empty world \u2013 staying alive and trying to find meaning in a world they hadn\u2019t prepared for.<\/p>\n But regardless of where your sequel falls on the timeline, your characters are not the same people they were at the beginning of the first book. Their lives have changed in fundamental – possibly terrible – ways, and you must be aware of that going into the sequel. I\u2019m not the same person I was 13 years ago and I suspect you\u2019re not either.<\/p>\n You know how at Thanksgiving, at the beginning of the day, \u201cthis is gonna be great\u201d and then by mid-afternoon, you\u2019re like \u201cI got left on the porch as an infant and my real mommy kills dragons and shit because no way am I related to these people\u201d and then by nightfall everyone is full and happy and you\u2019re all laughing over eating the rest of the Boston cream pie.<\/p>\n This is the best analogy I can come up with for writing a sequel. This is a familiar world, one you know really well \u2013 even if this story is set in a different corner of that world. You\u2019re not creating characters out of whole cloth, and you have an understanding as to what makes them tick. And remember, without memorable characters, you\u2019ve probably got a forgettable book.<\/p>\n That being said, it can wear on you a little. I\u2019ve spent more than four years in the world of The Immune<\/em>, and it\u2019s been a lot of fun \u2013 mostly. And they mostly come at night. Mostly. BUT I DIGRESS. In some ways, the sequel was the harder book to write, but it was very rewarding to spend that much time with the same characters \u2013 those mother-effers are ALIVE (or you\u2019re insane, one or the other). You find out new things about them that didn\u2019t come up in the first book. If I\u2019d passed on writing the sequel, I would have missed out on seeing the heroine in a whole new light, with years of experience and hardship under her belt.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve saved the hardest lesson for the end (and this is more directed to folks who want to sell a book to a traditional publisher, although it applies to self-publishers as well). I won\u2019t lie, this was the most painful lesson, in part because I learned it too late. Although I\u2019ve had decent success self-publishing, I have yet to sell a book to an American publisher. A Bulgarian publisher bought the rights to my very first book (a crime thriller) a couple years back and I have cool pictures of that book in bookstores around the Bulgarian capital. But a book in an American bookstore? It\u2019s still on my bucket list.<\/p>\n My agent loved The Immune<\/em>, and a number of editors had very nice things to say about it when we sent it out on submission. But in the end, it didn\u2019t sell (I ultimately self-published it), and some of the feedback was that the as-it-happens end-of-the-world story had already been done, so there really wasn’t demand for another book in that vein.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll never know, obviously, but I have a hunch that if I had written The Living <\/em>first (and The Immune <\/em>had never existed beyond that two-page backstory), it would have sold. I think it has enough interesting story elements that might have set it apart from other books in the genre. I\u2019m not saying I re-invented the wheel of apocalyptic fiction here, but I do know the genre pretty well; I\u2019m just saying that The Living <\/em>might have stood out just enough to pull in an offer.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I loved writing The Immune<\/em>, I was happy with how it turned out, and it\u2019s sold a goodly number of copies. But the experience was also a lesson in story development. If you think of one story, there may be a better or more interesting one hiding just underneath. Perhaps I wasn\u2019t an experienced enough writer then to think deeper than \u201cI\u2019ll write an apocalypse book now!\u201d Now when I think up a story idea, I try to think of another story behind it, or even behind that one, one that might not be as readily apparent.<\/p>\n I am in no way trying to force you to write solely to the market or discouraging you from writing whatever your precious little heart desires. But you should also be trying to stretch yourself as a storyteller, challenge yourself, find stories that are just a little farther off the beaten path. This could be the difference between getting a book deal or not; if you\u2019re self-publishing, this could be the difference between breaking free of the pack and your book getting lost in the shuffle.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n David lives in Virginia. The Living<\/em> is his third novel. He\u2019s also the creator of a series of short animated films, including So You Want to Write a Novel<\/em>, which have been viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube and were featured in the Washington Post<\/em>, the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, and the Huffington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n David Kazzie: Website<\/span><\/a> | Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nIt Can\u2019t Be Book-1-in-A-Different-Location or Do You Really Need to Write a Sequel?<\/h2>\n
Book 2 Should Probably Stand On its Own<\/h2>\n
Your Characters Have Changed a Lot Since Book 1<\/h2>\n
Writing a Sequel Is Harder Than You Think But It Is Also Very Comforting<\/h2>\n
Maybe This Should Have Been the Book You Wrote First and Not a Sequel At All<\/h2>\n