Have you ever read a story that drew you in so deeply you were sad when it ended? You didn’t want to be without the characters. They’d become part of your daily life, so much so that you’d find yourself thinking about them, eagerly awaiting free time so that you could dive back into the story.
You may have walked away from the last page wishing that the author had added more books to create a series. On the flipside, you might also have experienced times when you felt that a novel could have ended just fine in one book. In fact, the additional books almost ruined the story because they felt “forced” or like “filler” just to keep things going but unnecessarily so. As an author, you must determine whether writing sequels will be beneficial to your storyline and to your readers.
Writing sequels is not necessarily the same as a series
While we often use the terms interchangeably, writing sequels and writing a series is not necessarily the same. You can create a series simply by featuring the same character or characters in a number of separate stories. For example, in Jan Karon’s best-selling series entitled, “The Mitford Years,” there are 14 novels. They feature many of the same (but also some new) characters who live and work and worship in a fictional town called, “Mitford.”
To be a sequel, however, is typically considered a continuation of a specific storyline. In other words, you can write a series that isn’t a sequel and vice versa. In many cases, a sequel leads to a series when the initial storyline is complete, but the author wants to feature the same characters, settings, themes or elements in additional books without necessarily continuing a specific storyline.
Can you read sequels out of order?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. When writing sequels, some authors deliver their stories in a flexible sort of manner. A reader might be able to pick up a sequel (in this case, meaning Book Two) or a later book in a series and enjoy it on its own. There are also sequels designed to be read in order. If you read Book Two without having read the first book, you might feel lost as you try to follow the plot or answer certain questions or understand why some of the characters are behaving in certain ways.
Keep readers interested
Remember that a primary goal when writing sequels is to continue a story in which your readers are already invested. Therefore, a good sequel will always do two things: continue a story in a logical and cohesive manner and hold a reader’s interest. Put simply, if you want to write a sequel, you must be prepared to give your readers more so they’re not disappointed. Check out this article for tips on writing sequels.
