Guest
Post: The Saga
Of Davi Rhii-Keeping A Sequel Fresh
People ask this question a lot: how do you keep
the next
book fresh. This especially seems to be the case with sequels. In
part, I think
it stems from Hollywood moviemaker’s tendency to believe sequels
should be
rehashes of everything people liked about the first film, which is
mainly an
attempt to grab money rather than please people artistically and
usually
results in drab fair. The result is that people come to expect
sequels to
deliver less than the prequel, and they also are far more ready to
criticize
and find fault with a sequel for not living up to expectations.
But from the creative standpoint of the writer,
this creates
a challenge, especially if the first book is successful, although,
often times,
the second book will be written and turned in just as or before
the first book
is released. The challenge is compounded by the timeline of
publishing. The
first novel may be something you’ve worked on for several years, a
decade or
more. But once you sign the contract, you have a year to deliver
book two and a
year after that for book three, so if you didn’t start on them
before a deal,
you suddenly find yourself facing a challenge and a tight timeline
you’re not
used to working in.
For me, the approach I took was to look at each
book’s tone,
theme and style first. For example, The
Worker Prince is a coming of age tale. It is primarily Davi
Rhii’s book and
story, although there are two major antagonists and a number of
key supporting
POV characters and roles. The book has seven subplots intertwined
throughout in
addition to the main throughline and within these are substories
of family
drama, romance, friendship, rivalry, and more. Each plot and
subplot has its
own arc and interacts with the individual arcs of the others as
well as the
characters themselves. But whereas the main plot is the driving
force and
framework for the book, the subplots add to character development
and the
overall plot but deepening relationships, conflict, and theme in
various ways.
So, in The Worker Prince, the subplots, ultimately, are
tied to Davi’s
coming of age story in some way. Everything thus is framed by this
and must be
written to reflect it.
With the second book, The
Returning, the story becomes about a group of people rather
than just Davi.
Davi has a major role, sure, but we have an expanded canvass of
people whom we
got to know and grew to care about or despise (antagonists
perhaps) in the
first book and want to learn more about and spend more time with.
Again, Davi
is at the heart of the prime story in which the Vertullians have
won freedom
and are trying to be regular citizens while dissenters who resent
the change
still seek to cause trouble from riots to protests to
assassinations. Davi
investigates and seeks to uncover who’s behind this, with the help
of his key
friends, Yao and Farien, and yet there are subplots involving his
fiancée,
Tela, his mother, Miri, the two antagonists, members of the
Council, etc.
Interestingly, one of the things people really
liked in book
1 was the camaraderie of Davi, Yao and Farien. In The Worker Prince, they were together at the
beginning and then
kind of wound up on different paths with only a few encounters
bringing two of
them together at various times. In The
Returning, by including them on the main plot with Davi, I
got to keep them
together for much of the book and explore the dynamics of their
friendly
rivalry, friendship, banter, etc. It allowed me to develop those
relationship
far more deeply as well as expand all three as characters in fun
ways. So this
was one way I captured something people liked about the first book
to use in
the second.
Another thing people liked was the political
maneuvering and
scheming of the subplots, so I brought back Aron, Tarkanius,
Xalivar, Miri and
others for more of that in book 2 and a number of them take on
increased roles
this time.
To lend the book a different feel and more
urgency, I chose
a thriller-style surprise story for The
Returning with more intense stakes and action and faster,
more sudden
twists and turns that would keep readers guessing and barely let
them come up
for air. There are few reflective, quiet phases this time around,
unlike The Worker Prince,
which had a bit less
intense middle section. This book’s pace and plot keeps pounding
and twisting
forward the whole way, like a rollercoaster ride. It creates a
different feel
than the first book and also allows me to make the middle chapter
feel
complete, despite the fact that many of its arcs carry over into
the book that
will follow. Still, The
Returning and
The Worker Prince, while
they do have
similiarities—world and characters above all—are different books
and thus, I
hope, each fresh and unique on their own.
What are some of your experiences writing
sequels or next
books? Have you switched genres? Have you switched POV from first
to third?
What are the tricks and tools you use to keep things fresh not
only in your
prose but creatively for you as writer and for readers? We’d love
to hear about
it in comments.
In Bryan’s second novel, The Returning,
new challenges
arise as Davi Rhii’s rival Bordox and his uncle, Xalivar, seek
revenge for his
actions in The Worker Prince, putting his life and those
of his friends
and family in constant danger. Meanwhile, politics as usual has
the Borali
Alliance split apart over questions of citizenship and freedom for
the former
slaves. Someone’s even killing them off. Davi’s involvement in the
investigation turns his life upside down, including his
relationship with his
fiancée, Tela. The answers are not easy with his whole world at
stake.
Bryan
Thomas
Schmidt is
the
author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs
Year’s Best SF
Releases of 2011
Honorable Mention, and The Returning, the collection The
North Star Serial, Part 1, and several short
stories featured
in anthologies and magazines. He edited the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle
Space Tales #6 for
Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. As a freelance
editor, he’s edited
a novels and nonfiction. He’s also the host of Science
Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on
Twitter under
the hashtag #sffwrtcht. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SFSignal, he can
be found online as
@BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member
of the SFWA.
