Why is it harder to write a sequel?

Here we are, at the end of 2020, a year of growth, of change, of losing the normal and finding a new way to not just survive, but to thrive.

 

2020 started for me with the publication of my first book, Ranger of Kings, just before the United States was pushed into Lockdown. When that happened, we were all shifted to work from home, to find a new way to work. For me, it meant some really serious talks with my other half about where we wanted to be for the long run… and it wasn’t where we were.

 

Writing has had to fight for time with me against a volley of things – a full time job, a home remodel, training horses, training a puppy, searching for our next house, selling the first house I ever bought, and writing the prequel – The Falcon and The Stag.

 

And now where are we?

 

We are about 70% done with the rough draft of the hardest book I’ve ever wrote – the sequel of Ranger of Kings. It’s that exciting time where I am starting to seek out cover ideas, get the title ready for reveal, and the story is, at long last, flowing. Which brings me to the thing I realized most this year…

 

Writing book two, writing any sequel, is the hardest thing to do for myself as an author! Where book one already had a rough draft written years ago, and book two had the same, I imagined it would be a breeze. I was wrong. Dead wrong. The twist end at Ranger of Kings actually threw off the beginning of the second book and, when I saw down to write, I could not seem to bring the story to life. So I erased it….and started again….

 

Overall, I’ve written over 300k words and thrown them aside knowing they are not right, struggling with if this book will ever come out how I want it. And, at long last, I see the light at the end of that tunnel. The sequel is finally starting to come together now because I realize now why book two is harder to write than book one.

Expectations. Like it or not, you have book one out to the world and there are expectations. You read those reviews and they will either inspire or kill you. For me, I read a lot of reviewers loved my book but found the intro started slow and I took it too personally. I dove forward trying to change that, trying to make the beginning different but it wasn’t my style of writing in the least. It was someone else trying to morph it, not myself trying to write it.
Book one didn’t cooperate. And that’s a big part of it! Book one didn’t end how it was supposed to. It did it’s own thing and threw off the book two piece. So the sequel can’t start how it’s supposed to and then you’re sitting there, scratching your head, wondering what the heck happened. This meant I had to step back and really think of what I had to do now.
Pressure. You feel pressure to get book two out fast for your readers. You are trying to push it so they can binge on books one and two, so they can lap the series right up, both for themselves and for the meager amount you make off each 2.99 eBook. So you’re trying to write it and it’s just not happening fast enough and you panic and panic and panic
Life. Life really doesn’t cooperate with making book two easy. Book one you don’t think about how long it truly took until you’re staring down the barrel of book two and realizing you’ve got to make dinner, do laundry, work a full time job, remodel that house, have time for your family… it can get ugly.

But we know book two is harder, and it’s not necessarily unusual, at least I don’t believe so myself. The more important thing, though, is that it is manageable. You can combat this in the way you might try to overcome writers block and defeat the demons of distractions in writing. How have I been doing this at long last?

Realize it’s OK to write how you write. Sure, people might not think book one started fast enough, but they still rated it 4-5 stars, which means they liked my characters and the time it took to develop them. So write for you, and only you.
Timers. Oh this is a life saver for myself. I always think I don’t have time to write, it’s the thing I can push off to take care of the rest of the world, but then I am in a bad mood because I need to write to be happy! So take the time. I set a 3 minute timer to start and wrote, wrote as much as I could, without editing, without trying to control what happened, and let the page take life before my eyes. Write garbage, it’s fine. Just WRITE. And when the timer goes off and you only have four lines? It’s fine. Set another. Try to get five this time.
Remember you love it. Remember you are writing because you love your books, your characters, your world, and your writing. You are writing because you love to write and the moment you don’t, you need to step back and breath. You need to take a moment for yourself. Try writing something else, go for a walk, just lay on the couch with the TV off and image what is happening next.
Revisit your characters in book one. I’m an audiobook lover so I put my headphones on and was drawn back into my book, back to the world of Alamore. Don’t feel bad for forgetting what happened in book one. It was a whirlwind. Take that time to go back to your book.
Start at the end. Serious; I wrote the last 10k words well before I could find the start of the book. The start was so difficult! So I decided I liked the end better and would go back to the end, write something else, a scene already in my head, and skip the hard part. Later, my characters seemed to tell me how they got there and that’s exactly how I’ve gotten as far as I have this time round on book two.
Again… Just WRITE. Set that timer. Kick it out. Allow yourself not to judge yourself. Your brain is programmed for survival, not pleasure. You need to remind yourself that you will survive if you write something that isn’t great and, more over, you will never please the world with your books. You are writing novels because you love to do that. Set the timer. Write. Don’t look back until you’re done.

 

Hopefully these little tips can help out other authors running into the same road block as I did. Don’t worry; you’re not alone.

 

If you’ve found tips that help you get through the writing process or ideas on how to handle writers block in sequels, drop them below! Aways interested in hearing other people’s journeys.