Pleasures and Pitfalls of Writing a Fictional Sequel
Published February 26, 2018
Five years after the 2009 debut of my first historical novel, Rubies of the Viper, I began work on its sequel, The Viper Amulet, which was published in 2017. When that second book’s own sequel, The Ruby Ring, is finished in 2019, it will complete the sprawling first-century family saga that I call The Ruby-Viper Trilogy.
I did not set out to produce a trio of novels. The idea only entered my head after growing numbers of readers and reviewers commented that they had enjoyed Rubies of the Viper and wanted to know what happened later to its protagonists.
That suggestion was both flattering and intimidating. The learning curve for writing a sequel so many years after finishing its predecessor would be steep. Since my heroine was young, it would take two more books to do her story justice. And I realized that if the second book wasn’t at least as good as the first, and preferably better, few people would read the third. At last, fully aware of the challenges awaiting me, I decided to plunge ahead.
This post reflects my experience of writing three extensive novels in a chronological series. I hope you’ll enjoy learning a bit about the pleasures I savor and the pitfalls I try to avoid.
PLEASURES TO SAVOR
People: Reconnecting with my ongoing fictional and historical characters while also introducing new ones of both types is just plain fun.
The fictional co-protagonists in Rubies of the Viper are a nineteen-year-old Roman heiress named Theodosia Varro and her older, newly inherited Greek slave, Alexander. The tale is told exclusively through their alternating points of view. Both of them continue as major players in The Viper Amulet, where Theodosia’s point of view goes on while a younger relative’s perspective replaces Alexander’s. Theodosia’s point of view also extends through The Ruby Ring, and the other perspective moves to an even younger member of the family. It’s an unusual way to present a multi-generational story, but as I now work my way through the third book of the series, I’m happy with the way it’s turning out.
The historical male characters in Rubies of the Viper are Emperor Nero and four others—Otho, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian—each of whom will take his turn as emperor before my trilogy ends. There’s also a real-life female, a sultry courtesan named Poppaea Sabina who keeps things hopping (and men drooling) in Nero’s palace.
Poppaea Sabina
To further complicate the plot, a new-and-intriguing historical man enters the mix in The Viper Amulet. Another equally fascinating historical woman is poised to do the same in The Ruby Ring. More pleasures lie ahead!
Places: Most of Rubies of the Viper is set in or near Rome, although three characters travel to Greece and one ventures on to gritty Antioch and its leafy suburb, Daphne, in what was then a part of Syria and these days is a part of Turkey.
In that book’s sequel, The Viper Amulet, and now the sequel’s own sequel, The Ruby Ring, the novelty of introducing additional lands, cities, towns, and cultures from around the Mediterranean keeps me interested… and the reader, too, I trust. Ferreting out exactly the right physical details and atmospheric touches, which are essential to bringing today’s archaeological sites to life as the vibrant places that my characters would have experienced two thousand years ago, amuses me as much as researching a dynamic historical figure or coming up with a game-changing plot twist.
Events: Since my trilogy covers thirty tumultuous years (AD 53-83) and involves a host of ambitious real-life individuals, I take full advantage of the actual events that kept them busy. Wars. Assassinations. Conspiracies. Seductions. Skullduggery.
But what does the writer of a decades-spanning tale do in the inevitable lulls between history-making events?
One approach is to let th
e ordinary characters live their lives. This doesn’t mean, of course, that nothing happens. Conflicts still take place. Old hatreds still boil over. Men and women still make love, have babies, argue, gossip, steal, cheat, lie, bully, murder, and commit other atrocities. Invented people do just what real people have done throughout history. It’s up to me, as the author, to infuse their activities with the tension and uncertainty that keeps readers turning pages. I work hard to fill my stories with conflict and suspense, so I’m delighted that many reviewers report staying well engaged with them.
A second approach is simply to skip the slow parts. At one point in writing The Viper Amulet, there was little I could do to juice up Theodosia’s child-raising routine, which had no bearing on the plot anyway and threatened to smother it if I didn’t do something dramatic. So I planted one of those game-changing plot twists at the end of that section and then jumped seven and a half years forward into an energetic new section. The ploy works, the story moves along, and the suspense continues unabated to the end of the novel. Fun!
PITFALLS TO AVOID
Too much repetition: The writer of fictional sequels must produce notably different novels each time. While in most cases the main and supporting characters can and should continue into a second book and even a third or more, the typical reader won’t be thrilled to find all the same people with all the same quirks doing all the same things in all the same places with only minor variations throughout.
So I shake up my sequels with brash new players, even-more-epic conflicts, greater suspense, higher stakes, unique settings, and fresh plots and subplots.
Flawed assumptions: It’s never safe to assume that the reader of a sequel knows or cares that another book or several books came before it. Even a trilogy like mine, which explores a specific chronological sequence of events (as opposed to, say, one with a detective who investigates isolated, unrelated cases during a shorter time frame), may have readers starting with the second or third volume.
I believe that my novels are most enjoyable and impactful when read in order, so I titled the second one The Viper Amulet: The Sequel to Rubies of the Viper. That doesn’t guarantee that people will approach them the way I wish, although it does seem likely to increase the odds. But still, since I can’t force anyone to read them that way, I carefully buried in The Viper Amulet—and now am doing the same in The Ruby Ring—just enough brief, spaced-out, logically introduced trickles of information that will allow a late-coming reader to grasp the essentials needed from the previous book(s) without having to suffer through long, annoying info dumps. And if it’s been a while since a reader actually did read the previous book(s), he or she may appreciate those minimal reminders of what happened earlier in the series.
Unsatisfying conclusions: Since sequels follow both of my first two novels, I leave an opening at the end of each one that gives the main characters a smooth transition into the next. At the conclusion of Rubies of the Viper, they walk—literally and symbolically—through a door into the next phase of their lives. At the conclusion of The Viper Amulet, an emotional parting marks the passage. If readers want to stop at those two points, they can do so knowing that the story they’ve just finished is complete.
Personally, I dislike cliffhangers that require an additional purchase to find out what happens in a book I’ve just read. So I make sure that my novels come to their natural conclusions with all key characters accounted for and all plot and subplot issues resolved. Loose ends are always tied up unless they’re essential hooks on which the sequel hangs. And, of course, the third novel will wrap up the entire family saga with no dangling plot threads remaining at all.
That said, however, I don’t mind teasing readers with just a bit of ambiguity about the main characters’ futures, especially if a sequel is to follow. A reader’s curiosity is a writer’s best friend, after all.
Now, I’d love to hear from readers about the pleasures and pitfalls that you’ve noted in historical novels and their sequels.