The thing with sequels...

Or: Was I briefly insane?

I recently published my first book, Archer 887. It was a decade in the making, mostly because between conception and its birth, I had two kids, went back to school, went back to school again, started a new career, bought a house, and adopted two cats. Not necessarily in that order. It actually kind of all happened at the same time, it feels like.

Anyway, here I sit, with a hard copy of my book in my hand, trying to start the sequel. I have vague idea of a plot. I know the big stuff. I have a handful of new and returning characters. I know who is going to get offed and who will stay alive. Maybe. I swore up and down I would unalive my little redshirt in the first book, but then I just liked him too much. But not this time! mwah ha ha…

But the scenes just feel a little flat. I know I need time with my characters to learn who they are and how they think. What makes them mad and what they love. What they are willing to sacrifice and what hill they will die on. This I expect to come with time, with exploring their relationships, their interactions with the world around them.

I met with my writing coach, explaining this ennui that had settled over the miniscule number of words I have been able to get onto the screen. There was no drive. No need for the MMC to do the thing that would drive the plot. No impetuous for the FMC to make the plunge and risk it all for her people.

I think we settled on a solution: give them a deadline. I was thinking of the story as a set of parallel lines, all pointing forward. They touched at certain places. Event A led to Event B. Each character had their arc, but there was no propulsion to move them along that narrative parabola.

Now, I see the deadline, the ultimate event, as the center, a target for the characters to aim for. Or perhaps it is a sink hole, a literary snarlac pit and my characters are frantically trying to drag themselves to safety, only to be consumed and slowly digested over the next millennium.

Whatever monster awaits them in the depths of my plot, having a drive behind their actions, a necessity for their choices, good or bad, feels more propulsive. Inevitable. Tragic. And, hopefully, compelling.

I also decided to read my book again. I haven’t since I finished editing it back in June. Frankly, I was so sick of the thing, I wondered if I would ever read it again. But I feel a need to remind myself of the tone of my writing, the voices of my characters. Maybe that will help me flesh out the cardboard cutouts I currently have, make them live and breathe inside my universe.