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Writing a sequel could delight followers of your standalone ebook. It’s a possibility to construct on story arcs, characters – the world you’ve already created. Learn to write a sequel that satisfies followers:
What does sequel imply?
A sequel is a narrative that continues the occasions, characters and/or setting of a previous launch. As Oxford Dictionaries places it, ‘a ebook, movie, play, and so on. that continues the story of an earlier one’.
What’s certainly one of your favourite sequels of all time, and why? Tell us within the feedback.
What makes an excellent sequel?
Studying over discussions about sequels resembling this Quora thread (and ‘finest’ and ‘worst’ sequel lists), you’ll be able to collect {that a} good follow-up:
- Improves on its precursor (in character, construction, worldbuilding and different story components)
- Balances character consistency with plausible improvement (cherished characters could recur however aren’t all caught in the identical outdated patterns)
- Additional explores, deepens or develops questions raised or situations established
- Continues the threads of battles (inner and/or exterior) that the prior story didn’t absolutely resolve
- Renews (or believably ages) established fictive worlds
- Finds good tales left to inform in supply materials, moderately than cashing in in a cynical or crassly business method
What do you assume makes a improbable sequel? Hold forth within the feedback.
The best way to write sequels that fulfill followers:
- Brainstorm sequel concepts
- Analysis what makes an excellent sequel
- Steadiness character progress and consistency
- Mine prior books for brand new conflicts and arcs
- Keep away from what readers dislike in sequels
- Fluctuate problem, tone and temper utilizing new settings
- Pay fan service to what readers cherished
- Think about your sequel as a standalone
Let’s discover growing a collection by means of sequels additional:
Brainstorm sequel concepts
Writing a sequel to a ebook has one large benefit:
I all the time get excited after I discover on the market’s a sequel, as a result of all of the work is sort of executed.
Jennifer Coolidge
This can be true partly. You do have already got some parameters to work inside. But you continue to want to search out methods to make what’s there already – characters, settings, conflicts – contemporary and new.
Strive varied brainstorming strategies to give you sequel concepts, to search out one which works for you. You can:
- Free-write: Decide a personality, theme, or battle from the earlier ebook in your collection. Set a timer for quarter-hour and write as many situations or developments you’ll be able to give you
- Thoughts-map: Write an end result from a earlier title you wish to flip right into a collection on a web page. Draw traces off and join new potentialities
Analysis what makes an excellent sequel
What makes an excellent sequel? Readers and film-goers have widely-differing views. But researching why the best-loved sequels of all time are extremely regarded will enable you to perceive broad patterns.
Take The Godfather: Half II, which at time of writing has a 90 p.c common rating on Metacritic from 18 skilled critics’ evaluations.
It’s attention-grabbing to research and evaluate constructive language suggesting why an acclaimed sequel is taken into account higher than the unique.
The impression that emerges is that Francis Ford Coppola’s sequel:
- Goes deeper in analyzing characters’ psychologies and motivations
- Is extra acute in social commentary or critique (e.g. the character of dysfunctional households or the shadow aspect of capitalism)
- Exhibits penalties greater than glorifies (crime/violence)
- Is richer thematically
- Is broader in scope
- Transcends melodrama, exhibiting fuller authenticity
Wanting again to the earlier part, you might apply every of the above bullet-points to your sequel brainstorming.
How may your sequel embrace extra trenchant social commentary? Or present broader, rippling penalties of the occasions or state of affairs your earlier title ended on?
Steadiness character progress and consistency
In a sequel, if there are some inconsistencies in your story, they might go unnoticed. If they’re minor.
If characters readers adored in your earlier ebook change in a single day and this alteration reads:
- insufficiently motivated or earned by story occasions which present trigger
- as if your character turns into extra passive or much less concerned within the main motion
- As if your characters appear caught or static
Readers could also be pissed off. The above are a few of the criticisms made in Goodreads evaluations of the third ebook in The Starvation Video games collection, Mockingjay.
A handful of readers on Goodreads voted this the ‘most disappointing sequel’ in a ballot. Delving into the extra essential evaluations provides a way of why.
One frustration raised is that the primary character Katniss kicked butt much less:
One of many explanation why I cherished this collection was due to Katniss. She was sturdy, resourceful, intelligent and crafty, she had a tremendous survival intuition and he or she knew the right way to persevere. In Catching Hearth, these qualities diminished; she was primarily a pawn, a puppet for others to make use of for their very own targets. However she nonetheless had some semblance of management and he or she was nonetheless Katniss. In Mockingjay, all these traits are scrapped and we get a Katniss-clone who’s angsty and bitchy and whiny (wasn’t Bella in Twilight dangerous sufficient?). Half the ebook, she’s throwing herself pity events within the closet (actually!).
Goodreads consumer Tina, Goodreads ebook evaluation of Mockingjay.
To make sure characters develop in step with the personae in addition to the objectives and motivations you’ve established:
- Observe your character improvement: A story-planning software just like the Now Novel dashboard makes it simple, and you may obtain a PDF with hyperlinks again to edit your character descriptions as they develop
- Bear in mind what resonated with readers or beta-readers in ebook one: In case your character is a butt-kicking warrior or crack lawyer in ebook one, having them watch from the sidelines in ebook two could disappoint readers
Mine prior books for brand new conflicts and arcs
What in case your first ebook is a standalone and the first antagonist or impediment was overcome within the story’s climax and backbone? The place to from there?
Inspiration for battle in tales is simple to search out in our world’s historical past.
Historical past tells us defeated tyrants sadly usually depart energy vacuums. Energy vacuums which are shortly stuffed by one thing as dangerous or worse (or not totally comparable, however nonetheless antagonistic to the (further)bizarre particular person – or protagonist).
A defeated witch (fantasy), imply in-law overcome (romance), or different impediment could give solution to complete new trials in your sequel.
Writing is like improvisation in that it requires saying ‘Sure, and?’ – persevering with a thought or state of affairs to keep away from lifeless air.
To search out new conflicts and potential arcs for a sequel, take a look at the place the earlier ebook ended and ask:
- Who has gained what?
- Who has misplaced what?
- What does every character need or want now (and what is perhaps of their method)
- What new risk/peril/problem may check characters additional or take them on new adventures promising change?
Keep away from what readers dislike in sequels
There are various issues that readers are inclined to dislike in sequels. Sequels usually get unfavourable suggestions for:
Studying as a cash-grab. Cynical reviewers could say the creator rushed a sequel out as a result of the primary was a success.
Prioritizing one story side over others that appeared extra necessary in earlier titles. A typical criticism amongst Mockingjay reviewers was the over-prioritizing of Katniss’ love triangle.
Being overlong or needing a extra ruthless edit. Many fashionable collection’ sequels get longer and longer. Doorstoppers have larger printing and distribution prices, which is price preserving in thoughts (particularly if going indie).
Introducing overwhelming new info. Sequels additionally should dance between rehashing or inhabiting already-known worlds and creating one thing new inside mentioned worlds (or their extensions).
A criticism of Allegiant (the third ebook in Veronica Roth’s Divergent collection) was the way it launched an excessive amount of new worldbuilding that additionally reframed earlier worldbuilding particulars as unfaithful. This meant that the reader needed to revise plenty of what they’d already accepted as truth. An extra essential level was how the primary character needed to be advised a lot of this info through information dumps.
Train: Listening to sequel readers
As an train, discover two sequels in fashionable collection. Search their pages on Goodreads and filter by one- or two-star evaluations.
Skim essential evaluations and make a bullet listing of collection options which have aggravated followers.
Attempt to create an inventory normally phrases (e.g. skinny character improvement, repetition). What frustrations come up most? What do you’ll want to be careful for in your individual sequel?
Fluctuate problem, tone and temper utilizing new settings
A easy solution to make a sequel to a ebook attention-grabbing is to broaden scope.
Have a look at The Godfather: Half II, for instance. Twin arcs fluctuate the setting. Michael Corleone as the brand new Don of a mafia household. Then his personal father Vito’s path from childhood in Sicily to New York.
Obstacles and challenges in these two starkly completely different contexts present tonal and thematic selection.
Tolkien expertly makes use of the starkly completely different biomes of The Lord of the Rings to create a transparent sense of uncharted grounds from sequel to sequel. Place itself could add to your collection’ suspense.
Broadening scope – introducing a brand new location (and even world) – is a straightforward solution to proceed storylines and in addition deepen the sense of your characters’ lives being lived and actual.
You can fluctuate POV between titles, too. Modern romance creator Colleen Hoover’s ebook due out in 2022, It Begins with Us, is a sequel to her 2016 ebook It Ends with Us (which has offered over 900,000 print items). It features a romantic curiosity’s POV, absent from the primary ebook.
This option to discover an current character’s viewpoint despatched followers right into a frenzy of anticipation.
Pay fan service to what readers cherished
In selecting the right way to write a sequel, you may not wish to simply pander. Don Marquis humorously mentioned:
A sequel is an admission that you just’ve been lowered to imitating your self.
Don Marquis
On the identical time, ‘fan service’ or ‘giving the followers what they need’ is one viable method to writing a commercially profitable collection.
It’s clear within the instance above about Colleen Hoover’s sequel, for instance, that it pays to take heed to and act on followers’ most typical needs.
Think about your sequel as a standalone
Sequels vs standalone books – what’s the distinction?
A standalone ebook is self-contained and doesn’t require the reader to have learn a previous title to grasp it. Characters and contexts are launched clearly sufficient to know who’s who and what’s the place.
Imagining your sequel concept as a standalone ebook will enable you to reply necessary questions. Questions resembling:
- Does my ebook have adequate character and battle arcs of its personal to maintain the reader’s curiosity?
- Do my ebook’s starting, center and finish progress to a satisfying conclusion? Does it make this entry within the collection learn full?
When a Quora consumer requested, ‘do you like standalone novels or collection?’ a reader replied they like standalone books. Their purpose? As a result of authors wrestle to maintain high quality in collection constant. Every ebook ought to stand and provides high quality, by itself.
Get going with writing your individual collection or standalone with our Group Teaching course. Get writing instruments, coach Q&As, suggestions from editors and writing sprints to end your ebook in six months (or make substantial progress you’ll be able to construct on).
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That is the precise quantity of assist and nudging I wanted to lastly get this ebook written. After 17 years of including the deliverable of ending my ebook to my Should-Do-This-12 months listing every New 12 months’s Day and 364 days later transferring it out one more 12 months, it’s lastly occurring. Grateful. — Nancy
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