Boy. This trip to Hutlinana was not smoother.
We at least knew where not to start from last time. Buuuut, unfortunately, it turned out that that just meant we found another place to not start from this time. After another four hours of wandering lost in thick woods or on thin ice (heck, sometimes both), we ended up—I kid you not—coming out of the trees right at the wrong trailhead that we had started out from last time. The very spot!
But the kids were troopers and they took to mommy’s zero-complaints stance with gusto, jumping in on my self-made pact without us even having to ask them to. They were fantastic. Even our seven-year-old managed to stay strong and keep up. I was really struggling after about six hours into our wandering in the wilderness, and so my eleven-year-old strapped in and hauled my supply sled for me the rest of the way to the springs.
And I only blacked out face down in the trail once. Huzzah!
As far as sequels go, it was pretty good. It had all the same elements that made the last journey great (beautiful vistas, threat of wolf attack, exhaustion, and stoic and beautiful heroine), plus a few new features to keep it interesting (child endangerment, treacherously low temperatures, and some slapstick hygiene struggles). The plot was a little formulaic (skiers get lost in the wilderness trying to find an undeveloped hot spring, struggle to survive and keep their spirits up, learn to work as a team, and make it safely to their destination), but that’s true of a lot of sequels. I still enjoyed it.
So when you strip away the details, what makes a good sequel? As a writer of series and standalones alike, I’m sometimes surprised by what I end up with. It’s hardly ever what I planned. In particular, books that I imagined as single titles will suddenly split in two, or even sprout a new story altogether, and follow-ups that I had planned out for years are suddenly a terrible idea and should never be spoken of again.
N E V E R A G A I N
When I’m considering a sequel, I usually have three questions in mind. Does having a sequel make sense given what happened in the first story? Does the potential sequel follow the spirit of the first story? And does it offer something new?
Does it make sense? Think about the story arc of the first story. Does it make sense for there to be a second story (or third, or fifth, or tenth)? If your character has more growing to do, or there’s another bad guy out there (who themselves also make sense within the parameters of the world) that your character has to take care of, go for it. But don’t wrap everything up at the end of the first story and then think you can plunk the characters right back down where they started last time. Whatever you do, keep the characters moving forward. Don’t dismiss what they accomplished in the previous story; rather, build on it in the next one. But if you can’t keep building them and their world, it doesn’t make sense to write a sequel.
Does it follow the spirit of the first? Now think about the world and the feel of the first story. Was it filled with wonder? Keep that. Was it edge-of-your-seat terrifying? Keep that. Don’t go swapping your vibe just because you think more explosions will make up for less plot. It won’t. Recycling specific motifs between stories can help to tie the stories together (think Indiana Jones’ hat, or Harry Dresden’s pentacle), but more important is to keep the overall spirit of the story. If your readers praised your first book’s light-hearted fun and witty banter, don’t give that up because you think readers might be more emotionally invested in an edgy, dark story with a brooding grouch.
Does it offer something new? Remember when we talked about keeping the characters moving forward? Here’s an easy way to accomplish that. Whatever your characters endured and learned from last time- how can a new story challenge those skills and that knowledge in new ways? The characters need new struggles and new villains to overcome. Resurrecting the same story over and over again gets boring. Instead, think about how to start a character from where they ended in the last book with situations that continue to stretch and change them. If they’ve already proved they can solve one problem, don’t make them solve it again. Give them a new puzzle.
If I can answer yes to all three of those questions—does it make sense, does it follow the spirit of the first, and does it offer something new—then I just might have a good sequel on my hands.
How about you fine readers? When you’re considering writing (or even reading) a sequel, what elements do you take into consideration? How can you tell if it’s a good idea? Let me know in the comments below!
And until next week, happy writing!
Jill Marcotte 