Sequel Trouble

If you have a question or topic you'd like addressed, please post it in a comment, and we'll try to help.

Lisa writes:

I might want to get going on Book 2. But knowing how much to repeat from Book 1 is becoming a bit of a struggle.

Getting going on Book 2 is a fabulous strategy. When I was doing the Unpubbed contest circuit, I noticed that the authors who were entering two titles at the same time seemed to do much better... in that they retired much sooner from the lists, and I infer that they made sales.


How much to repeat... is an important balance when you've built an alien world, and yet every book in the series has to be a stand-alone.

When I was writing Insufficient Mating Material (sequel to Forced Mate), my editor Alicia Condon suggested that I ought to take J K Rowling as my role model as regards backstory telling.

If course, I was not going get the page count or the ink. So, I spent a delightful summer acquainting myself with Harry Potter, and trying to extrapolate proportions for "potted" versions of my own backstory. (Bad pun. Couldn't resist. Sorry!)


Here's my take: (Somewhat repetitive)

1. Break any rule of thumb rather than bore your reader.

2. Avoid info dumps at all costs. (Six lines of explanation is more than enough.)

3. On any given page, tell the reader only what she absolutely must know in order to understand the current action, or rules of your alien world.

4. Delay telling as much as you can of the back story.

5. Reunions of beloved characters from the previous book are fun for your established readers, but not so much for someone coming cold to Book 2, not having read Book 1, so any cameo appearances must be meaningful and advance the new story.

6. Use family trees, charts, maps with annotations as creative and visually different techniques for communicating backstory, who's who info etc.

7. Do not rely on being able to use footnotes. Some editors will be nervous about the possibility of the printer being unable to line them up.

8. "Dear Reader" letters in the Front Matter are a possibility, but frequently are skipped by the very reader you wanted to bring up to speed.

9. Prologues ought to be short, but can be very useful and entertaining. A great example would be the J K Rowling scene where the Minister of Magic is obliged to brief the British Prime Minister.

10. Consider putting a fresh spin on the backstory by having someone else relate it... I like to remember that "Summer Lovin'" duet from Grease where the Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta characters gave different accounts of a sweet summer romance.

11. My personal favorite backstory comunicator is my own Grievous. A "Greek Chorus" character is extremely useful. Or an employee who habitually covers his backside by making absolutely sure he understands his orders.


What have I missed?

Rowena Cherry

Alien romance and Pharmarchy

Pharmarchy. It's not a spelling mistake, it's a new world order.

As a word, Pharmarchy doesn't exist as far as I know --yet-- and I may have some trouble with a copy-editor when KNIGHT'S FORK gets to that stage, which will be very soon.

However, I've been doing world-building around my latest, sexually dysfunctional (by alien Djinn standards) sub-hero of KNIGHT'S FORK. He's the guy with the war-hand that is always on display, and the retractable equipment that isn't, and that isn't necessarily designed for pleasure, and that might or might not require a rub to get it to work.

I haven't been blogging or reading blogs, or comments on blogs until --briefly-- today. I see that "great minds think alike" again, at least as regards "spam". Linnea was the first friend to mention the inspiring value of spam. I think it was in connection with the naming of characters. Now, Jacqueline has commented on spam. I've remarked about what's in my spam, too.

If I were a female hyena, with a pseudo-you-know-what, I might be more interested in the pills, rubs, and creams that I could pop and apply.

And by the way, have you noticed the crafty reverse psychology in the warning about the possibility of four-hour continuous effectiveness? I don't imagine most males would worry until three hours and fifty-eight minutes had elapsed.

When I was at university studying Sociology, I recall that one book we were required to read was a Margaret Mead study from Samoa. (My apologies to Samoa if my memory is at fault.) I think those of us who discussed the primitive sex advice decided that the translator was pulling her leg. It was suggested that young men who wanted impressive packages should insert their privates into a wild bee hive.

It must be obvious that I was forever damaged by reading this ugly hoax at an impressionable age.

It seems to me that recent advertising has caused us to talk --and think-- about conditions that we would once consider too humiliating and embarrassing to mention as if they are normal (which they might be) and socially acceptable. And, of course, to accept pharmaceuticals as the obvious remedy.

I think my late father would have been horrified to see people on television make a song and a dance about diarrhea! I've never mastered the spelling of the word, I've had so little occasion to write about it.

Which brings me to Pharmarchy. Or Pharma-archy. As in mon-archy, olig-archy.

Maybe there is a more elegant word?

Instead of the warriors, or the politicians, or the priests, or the industrialists, or the traders ruling an alien world, I'm putting the pharmaceutical chemists in power. They're not "bound" by a Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, are they?

Hey, if every male in a world becomes dependent on a pill, and cannot enjoy an erection without one, imagine the power the Big Three would have.

Big Three Pharma, that is.

Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com