Reservoir Blogs #2 – How Hard Can It Be To Write The Sequel?

My previous posting of  ‘Reservoir Blogs #1’ came to me while running through the slushy mud around one of Northamptonshire’s most important water sources, hence its title, so how better to get through the post-Christmas inertia of writing, or not-writing, a sequel to my novel The Typewriterists than by jogging once again on those same squidgy pathways? 

There’s no doubt about it, sequels are hard, aren’t they?  I’m sure you’d agree, if you’ve ever had to do it.  I’ve been trying to list out the pros and cons, or in other words, what’s making it easier or harder than it was the write the original.  Here are some thoughts:

Let’s start with the ‘Easier’ column:

• One book down, I know my characters better.  At least half the cast is already established; I’ve been living with them for several years.  I understand how they work!
• I’ve already done most of the world building.  I don’t have to create/ imagine everything from scratch.  Like a set on the backlot of Paramount Studios, I have most of the scenery ready to go.  
• Readers will come to the story knowing the previous background, so I don’t need to write all that exposition and backstory stuff all over again.  I can just get on with it, right?

But then, there’s the harsh reality of the ‘Harder’ column:

• Some of the readers won’t have read the previous book, so I have to offer enough exposition to get them up to speed without boring the pants off the veterans who, like me, are raring to get into the action.  That’s a tricky balance.
• I used to have a ‘Get Out Of Jail’ card when I got stuck, I could go back and change the history I’d already written.  Now, the  historical facts – the backstory – has APPEARED IN PRINT.  Even if some details now seem wrong, large chunks of the past in this supposedly fictional world is now enshrined as ‘fact’.
• The now-familiar characters just won’t do what they’re told when I decide they need to.  They keep messing up my new plot by asking questions like ‘What’s my motivation in this scene?’ and other stupid questions that actors ask of authors.  They say, “But the [Freddie or Freya] I know just wouldn’t say this,” and I find myself yelling, “Yes, they would.  Look, they say it right here on the page I’m trying to write.”

That’s all I have for now.  But if you’d like to see the problem I’ve created by past publication, please do check out Forged Truth’s first ever publication, The Typewriterists, the novel for which I am trying to create a follow up.