The Terrors of Writing A Sequel

This week, I thought I’d share a little of the twisted world of writing.

I love sequels. When I finish a great book, I hope the author will write something else from that world or take a luscious secondary character and make him the hero of his own story.

As a reader, I love this. As an author, it terrifies me.

A little bit about how I go about putting together a book (it makes more sense later, really).

For me, the creative process begins when I come with a scene, one scene, and from that scene, I create the rest of the book. Basically, I write the book so I can read that defining scene. (I actually wrote an entire book around the sentences, “Most people would have thought it was impossible but she’d done it. She’d pissed off Santa Claus.”)

So, that’s where my creative juices start flowing. I have scene, I create characters, I figure out conflict (if it’s not already apparent), and I come up with “the rest of the story.”

When the book is finished, many times I’ve fallen in love with the world or the characters and I realize…I could write a sequel!

And that’s when I wish I was a better planner. I wish I’d thought of this before I finished writing book one. Now, I have a world and a character, but no scene. I don’t know where to start! It’s rather terrifying, actually.

I love when I see an author that so clearly has her world defined and her characters laid out. The best example I can think of is JR Ward and the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. From the first book, she’s got clearly defined secondary characters that make you want more, but never take away from the hero and heroine of the story.

The reason this is on my mind is I have a sequel coming out this week. Summer’s Caress (from Ellora’s Cave) is the sequel to New Year’s Kiss and once again, as I was writing NYK, it never occurred to me that I would write more in the series. But I found myself so captivated with the werewolf world I’d created, that I wanted to spend more time there.

So I began with a character (Rebecca) and had to come up with a scene that defined the book for me. It’s a little backwards from how I normally write but it was a fun challenge. The scene that became the “one scene” for me ended up being between the two heroes (with Rebecca appearing at the end). Very sexy and just makes my heart go pitter-patter thinking of it.

And, I’m learning (yes, she can be taught!). I’m working on two more sequels in the New Year’s Kiss/Summer’s Caress werewolf world, but this time, I realized I wanted to write more while I was in the middle of Summer’s Caress. It gave me the chance to prepare a bit before sitting down to write the next two books.

So, what makes a book “sequel-worthy” to you? What makes you want more (and more!)? Do you fall in love with characters or the world the author’s created? What keeps you coming back?

Have a great week!
Tielle