Joys and Challenges - Writing a Sequel
With Liberty Bound my first venture as a novelist, it will come as no surprise that Where Liberty Lies is my first time writing a sequel. You’ve written one book: how hard can it be to write another? Well, it’s a mixed bag. I learned much from penning my debut but new challenges emerge when you have to follow it up. You require an equally satisfying narrative but one that demonstrates a developing author, a new slant on a familiar setting and some fresh twists and surprises. Familiar protagonists have to grow some more, while new characters must sprout green shoots. As with that tricky second album for musicians, your fans won’t forgive you if you try a radically new approach.
The general advice for writers approaching a sequel is to move to a later time and different scenario, even a different location. Don’t get bogged down in territory you have already covered in the first story. I’ve taken a slightly different route for Where Liberty Lies due to a desire to create a feeling of a saga. The trilogy is very much a journey: freedom and happiness the destination. As such, I am keen to deliver a chronological flow across the books, with the literal journey of the protagonists carrying them into new scenarios and settings.
One of the toughest decisions to make is which characters go from book one to book two. They have a habit of growing on you as you write. Some you kill off, solving the problem, others you just have to leave behind (that’s why moving location is helpful). In many ways it reflects real life (apart from the killing off part). But, of course, any character has to fit the narrative and there is no point including one if they don’t help move the story along, no matter how enjoyable they were in a previous book. The combination of personalities creates the dynamics: the same old faces, saying the same old things, will bore the reader. So, fresh blood broadens those dynamics, bringing new perspectives, alternate responses and opens fresh paths for the story to take. A change in the chemistry creates a different reaction. And it helps to start planning before you end the previous book! One thing I thought essential was the need for a new protagonist with equal standing to the existing leads. Someone the reader can connect to emotionally for this stage of the saga. It provides the whole book with a unique character.
I wanted Where Liberty Lies to not only be a sequel but also stand on its own as a novel. This is not easy. You can’t spend the first chapter resetting the scene, explaining all the background for the new reader - your loyal readers won’t want that. Both must be absorbed immediately in the story, an understanding of the ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ drip-fed within the context of the current action, never slowing the pace. You don’t have to explain everything, a bit of mystery is good, as long as everything makes sense to the active narrative and doesn’t undermine the former book. I had a dedicated beta reader, with no experience of Liberty Bound, test Where Liberty Lies. They found it easy to slip in to and understand, but gave some helpful suggestions, like their confusion when Finbarl first uses ‘cronax’, a word with no meaning to them. I simply resolved with, “Cronax!” cursed Finbarl.
So, what do you have to retain in your sequel? There are the ‘rules’ of your fictional world. It isn’t essential to keep your main protagonists from book one, particularly if time has progressed by a good distance (Asimov’s Foundation series is a good example of that), but you need a thread that ties all together (Hari Seldon and his mathematics does that for Foundation). With Where Liberty Lies, time is not the new factor, just the location. Finbarl, Aminatra and Karlmon remain my protagonists, and it is the shared world history that remains a constant, the collapse of civilisation, global warming, limited resources etc. There is also the overarching theme, namely, the pursuit of liberty and its exploration. It is such a complex and interesting area, that I have the luxury of sub-dividing it, so book one looked at how fear and ignorance impact on it, while book two takes on deceit and dishonour (book three will have another facet). There will have been a reason your readers liked your first book: good characters, fast-pace, exciting action, romance, suspense, twists and turns etc. These are the ingredients you must keep. If you want to write a different style, then create an alternative series.
The editing side for my sequel was easier. I was able to write with a better understanding of what is expected, meaning I didn’t have to revisit and correct many of the areas that proved necessary for book one. The difference between draft one of Liberty Bound and the published edition was quite significant, much less so for Where Liberty Lies. That’s not to say it was perfect, but I needed about a quarter of the time to reach a finished version.
I believe Where Liberty Lies complements and builds on Liberty Bound, with a more ambitious tale and richer prose. Given the success of the latter, I hope that bodes well for Where Liberty Lies, but only the reader can decide that. Early signs are promising.
Nathaniel