{"id":32295,"date":"2018-05-30T09:24:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T13:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=32295"},"modified":"2018-05-30T09:24:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T13:24:50","slug":"fonda-lee-so-you-think-you-know-how-to-write-a-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2018\/05\/30\/fonda-lee-so-you-think-you-know-how-to-write-a-sequel\/","title":{"rendered":"Fonda Lee: So, You Think You Know How To Write A Sequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

You cannot go wrong with Fonda Lee<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, as has been proven time and time again. That’s true with her books, and true with her guest posts here at terribleminds. And if you require further example, she’s back — this time, talking about how you think you know how to write a sequel, ha ha ha oh no. Ohhhh no.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

STEP ONE: DELUSIONAL OPTIMISM<\/strong><\/p>\n

Congratulations! You wrote a book and now your publisher and your readers are eagerly clamoring for the sequel. No problem, you\u2019ve got this. You spent a long time, maybe years, creating the world and developing the characters, so all the hard work is already done. Now you just have to continue the story, and you have plenty of ideas about how to do that because you cleverly left some threads untied in the first book and also scribbled some stuff on a Post-It note when your agent asked you for a summary of book two. Start by making an outline. Pat yourself on the back; it looks good. You\u2019re a fucking professional now. Be sure to agree to an aggressive deadline. After all, the market rewards momentum and you don\u2019t want to keep fans waiting!<\/p>\n

STEP TWO: DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Huh. You were sailing along in your writing, humming a merry tune, but now something\u2019s wrong. You\u2019re doing what you\u2019re supposed to, you\u2019re continuing the story, but there\u2019s a nagging suspicion growing in your gut that you\u2019ve been following the figurative path with your eyes on your feet and now as you slowly raise your head, you realize the sun has gone down in the woods and the trail has vanished, and the glowing red eyes are beginning to circle round.<\/p>\n

What happened<\/em>, you ask yourself. You analyze your choices. The sequel you\u2019re writing is too similar to the first book; you\u2019re just retreading ground and not being inventive enough. Or it\u2019s too different from the first book; you\u2019re not delivering any of the stuff that readers will want after reading the series opener. You\u2019re spending too much time dealing with the events of the first book. Or not spending enough. You have too many new characters. You have too few. You step back and compare what you\u2019ve done so far with your first book. Terrible mistake. The first book\u2014in all its edited, revised, beautifully published glory\u2014is perfect. This is dog vomit. You decide you would like to burn the manuscript, pretend this never happened, and start on a new project about something completely different. You can\u2019t. You\u2019re committed not just to the sequel, but to the canon you\u2019ve already written. Also, you\u2019ve already spent the advance money. By writing the first book, you made a very nice, sturdy sandbox, and now you\u2019re trapped in the damn sandbox<\/em>, and no one can hear you claw at the inside surfaces with your bloody fingernails.<\/p>\n

Dazed and at a loss, you get on the Internet hoping for panda videos. Hey, people are talking about your first book! It\u2019s doing well, getting good reviews, being nominated for awards, going into subsequent printings! You despair; you can\u2019t possibly deliver a sequel that will live up. Or there\u2019s silence; the first book\u2019s not doing as well as you\u2019d hoped. You despair; no one is going to read your second book anyway, so all you\u2019re struggles are for nothing. You see-saw between these two states multiple times in a single day. You call up your writer friends. Oh yeah, they say, didn\u2019t we tell you? Writing the sequel is a bitch.<\/em> No, you scream, you didn\u2019t tell me! No one told me! This is supposed to be easier!<\/em> You rend your hair and crawl under the table.<\/p>\n

STEP THREE: UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF SEQUELS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay, you\u2019ve calmed down with the narcotic substance of your choice and have emerged from under the table to re-evaluate your situation. Slowly, you come to the realization that sequels are a unique challenge: You\u2019re trying to write a new story (difficult at the best of times) within<\/em> the scope of a larger story. You need to stay true to the events and the characters of the first book while also bringing in new elements, raising the stakes, and going deeper into the layers of the narrative, all at the same time. All with the shadow of public expectation hovering over you.<\/p>\n

Take heart; you haven\u2019t become a shittier writer between your first and second book. This is hard stuff and you haven\u2019t faced this particular set of constraints and pressures before. Take a deep breath. You can do this. There are people who believe in you: your agent, your editor, your readers\u2014they believe in you<\/em>. To start with, let go of your first book. Just a little. You need some mental distance from it and how it\u2019s performing. Stop reading reviews of what people liked and didn\u2019t like about it and what they want or don\u2019t want in the sequel. Pretend someone else wrote that book and you\u2019re picking up where they left off. You can\u2019t lose sight of the story canon that\u2019s been established, but this new book is its own thing. What\u2019s the story you<\/em> want to tell now<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The characters, wherever they were at the end of the first book, need new goals and story arcs and\/or new layers or complications in the motivations they\u2019ve carried forward. The plot needs to make sense in the context of what\u2019s already happened but also go in fresh and unexpected directions. Think about some of the best movie sequels: Terminator 2<\/em> flipped expectations by making the villain of the first movie the hero of the second. The tone of The Empire Strikes Back<\/em> is dramatically different from the space opera candy of A New Hope<\/em>. The Godfather Part II<\/em> cut back in time. Alien<\/em> was an atmospheric horror story; Aliens<\/em> was a rousing action flick.<\/p>\n

Put yourself in the sequel\u2019s shoes for a minute. Just as every villain is the hero of their own story, the sequel doesn\u2019t think of itself as a second player. The sequel thinks of the first book as the opener, and itself as the main event. \u201cThanks for warming up the crowd for me, buddy, let me take over from here,\u201d says your sequel, confidently throwing its cape over its shoulder. Sequel acknowledges what was cool about First Book, but it isn\u2019t afraid to do its own thing. With that in mind, you stop obsessing over writing a good sequel, and focus on simply writing a good story.<\/p>\n

STEP FOUR: ALL THE WORK AND HALF THE FUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

You recommit. You write the damn book. You rewrite it. You revise it. Many times. You probably go through more drafts than you did with the first book (but you set that fact aside, because you\u2019ve resolved to stop comparing this manuscript to the first book, remember?) You\u2019re under time pressure, but if you need to, you ask for an extension because it\u2019s more important that the book is good<\/em> than that it\u2019s released on a precise schedule, no matter what they say.<\/p>\n

At last, you\u2019re done. It was a ton of work, and guess what? The sequel will likely less attention that the first book did, especially if the first was your debut. Odds are it will get less hype, fewer trade and reader reviews, lower sales, and have less chance of being nominated for awards. Woop-de- friggin\u2019-do! So\u2026why do people do this again? Why don\u2019t we all write standalones?<\/p>\n

Because the reward for both the author and the reader is just too good to pass up: a chance to go back to a world we\u2019ve fallen in love with, to spend more time with characters who\u2019ve captured our hearts, to tell a bigger story on a bigger canvas, to answer the burning question, \u201cWhat happens next?<\/em>\u201d With luck, your badass sequel goes out into the world and makes your existing readers very happy, and to the new readers, it says, \u201cHey, you\u2019re missing out, but you can still get in on the party. Let me introduce you to my buddy over here, First Book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahhh, you did it, you wrote a sequel! Flush with victory, you sit down to write the third book!<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t talk to me about the third book.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Fonda Lee\u2019s new young adult science fiction novel,\u00a0Cross Fire<\/em>, is the sequel to\u00a0Exo<\/em>, which was a Junior Library Guild Selection and Andre Norton Award finalist. Fonda is also the author of the YA novel\u00a0Zeroboxer.\u00a0<\/em>Her recent adult debut, the fantasy saga\u00a0Jade City<\/em>, was a finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards and named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Barnes & Noble, Powell\u2019s Books, Syfy Wire, Den of Geek, and the Verge.<\/p>\n

In the stunning follow-up to\u00a0Exo<\/em>, Earth\u2019s century of peace as a\u00a0colony of an alien race has been shattered. As the government\u00a0navigates peace talks with the human terrorist group Sapience,\u00a0Donovan Reyes tries to put his life back together and return to his\u00a0duty as a member of the security forces. But a new order comes\u00a0from the home planet: withdraw. Earth has proven too costly and\u00a0unstable to maintain as a colony, so the aliens, along with a small\u00a0selection of humans, begin to make plans to leave. As word of the\u00a0withdrawal spreads through the galaxy, Earth suddenly becomes\u00a0vulnerable to a takeover from other alien races. Invaders who do not\u00a0seek to live in harmony with humans, but to ravage and destroy the\u00a0planet for its resources.<\/p>\n

As a galactic invasion threatens, Donovan realizes that Sapience\u00a0holds the key that could stop the pending war. Yet in order to save\u00a0Earth,\u00a0all\u00a0species will have to work together, and Donovan might just\u00a0have to make the ultimate sacrifice to convince them. But can one\u00a0person save an entire planet from total extinction?<\/p>\n

Fonda Lee: Website<\/span><\/a> | Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Crossfire: Exo Excerpt<\/span><\/a> | Indiebound<\/span><\/a> | Amazon<\/span><\/a> | B&N<\/span><\/a> | Powells (Signed Copies)<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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You cannot go wrong with Fonda Lee, as has been proven time and time again. That’s true with her books, and true with her guest posts here at terribleminds. And if you require further example, she’s back — this time, talking about how you think you know how to write a sequel, ha ha ha […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-8oT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32295"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32301,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32295\/revisions\/32301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}