Meredith Mansfield, Author

First an update:  Yesterday, I finished the second draft of DREAMER’S ROSE.  There were times during the first draft that I thought I’d never finish that story.  Now it’s finally starting to shape up.  Next, I need to have a couple of readers look it over.  Meanwhile, I’m going to start a major revision to THE IGNORED PROPHECY.

Which brings me to today’s topic: Series and Sequels.  THE IGNORED PROPHECY is a sequel to THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and second in what will likely be a four-book series.  Now, the conventional wisdom is that you shouldn’t write the second book in the series until you’ve sold the first.  It could just be a huge waste of time that you’re better off spending on something new.  I didn’t know that when I started THE IGNORED PROPHECY.  Even if I had, I learned an awful lot writing that book.

There is one exception to that rule, however–if the books are meant to stand alone.  This is one of the things that I wrestled with in THE IGNORED PROPHECY.  My intention is that the books should be able to stand alone.  You should be able to read THE IGNORED PROPHECY and know you’ve read a satisfying story even if you’ve never heard of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.  So far, on the basis of readers who had not read the first book, I seem to be doing reasonably well at that.

This is my feeling about series and sequels in general.  As a reader, I like series, but I strongly prefer that each book contain a complete story of its own, especially when it may be a year or more before the next book comes out.  This has always been my preference, even before THE WHEEL OF TIME forever soured me on series that just go on and on and get more complicated with more characters and never resolve anything.

So, THE IGNORED PROPHECY is and should be a complete story in itself.  It’s harder to do that than it sounds.  So many things were set up in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE–rules of magic, cultures, characters and relationships.  Then I have to remember to establish all of that all over again–without using an info dump or confusing the reader with too much all at once.  Early readers found a few things that I hadn’t adequately explained in the second book, but that aspect looks pretty good at this point.

Next revision:

1. Clean out left over material from a story line that got moved to book four (untitled).
2. Move things closer together at the beginnng so the main character gets hit with several strange things happening all at once.  Knock him off balance and keep him there.  (Poor guy really got knocked around in the first book and now it’s off to the races again.  I guess he’ll have earned a rest by the end of the fourth book.)
3. Move the resolution of one of the mysterious occurrences to later in the book.  Keep him off balance, scared, worried.
4. Get deeper into the main character’s point of view to really show how all of these strange things are affecting him and up the stakes.