Should you write a prequel?
At Kill Zone Blog, a post by Sue Coletta: Should you write a prequel?
Upside of Prequels
Character depth: Write a prequel to show the origin story of a beloved character or cast to explain their motivation and how they became who they are in the original series.
World-building: Write a prequel to provide a deeper look into the world before the main events i.e., history, politics, culture, etc.
Fresh perspectives: Write a prequel to showcase lesser-known characters and their perspectives.
Well, yes, I would say that pretty well covers some of the big reasons to write prequels. There’s another, I suppose:
Author would enjoy writing it: Write a prequel because you’d just like to write it. Sue Coletta doesn’t mention author enjoyment at all, but honestly, this seems like a perfectly adequate reason. I’m thinking of Marag, of course. Why did I write that? Because someone here (I don’t remember who, sorry!) suggested it and I thought You know, that might be fun. Then a couple of scenes occurred to me. Then I wrote the first chapter, and there you go, a prequel appeared. I didn’t do it in order to showcase secondary characters. That was a result of doing it, not part of why I decided to do it.
What does Sue point to as potential problems with writing a prequel?
Downside of Prequels
Unnecessary recap: Don’t write a prequel to rehash plot points from one of the original novels or the series as a whole.
Disappointing character portrayals: Don’t write a prequel to capture the essence of an established character or cast, or you’ll risk undoing all the characterization in the series.
Quality: If you don’t believe the prequel can live up to the high standards of the series, write something else.
Does anybody ever write a prequel that covers the same plot points as one of the prior novels? Maybe they do, from a different point of view. I feel like I’ve seen that, though I can’t think of any examples offhand. I’m not sure about whether I think that’s a bad idea. I think it could be neat, at long as it’s not the villain’s pov. Which could also be neat, I guess, for someone who isn’t me and doesn’t detest villain points of view as much as I do. Antagonists are fine, though. I might enjoy seeing the same events if they looked radically different. I’m SURE I’ve heard of or read something that did that, but I just don’t remember what it was.
Disappointing character portrayals, really? You hardly need to say this. Obviously it’s always bad to do disappointing character portrayal, in a prequel or anywhere else. I don’t see why attempting to capture the essence of an established character is bad, unless you fail to capture the essence of the character. I do see why attempting to do this is bad if you fail, but it’s just as bad if the story is a sequel as it would be in a prequel. Maybe worse.
As for quality, obviously. There’s no need to say that either. I think Sue was trying too hard to get three points in order to match the three upsides.
What are some prequels I’ve particularly liked? Well, The Magician’s Nephew is a prequel novel, so that’s one. My goodness, what is up with this new cover?
What is the publisher thinking? That’s a completely ridiculous cover for this story.
Not a lot of others are occurring to me. Oh, no, I can think of one other — Golden Dream is basically a prequel novel for Little Fuzzy, even though it was written by Ardath Mayhar instead of H Beam Piper. Golden Dream does also overlap in time with the other Fuzzy books. Of course some of the Fuzzy books got Michael Whelan covers, which means they’re some of my all-time favorite novel covers. Little Fuzzy is free at least at the moment for the Kindle version, but none of the versions currently offered have the wonderful Michael Whelan cover, so honestly, I’d be looking for a used copy of the original paperback if I didn’t already have it.
Anyway, at some point, not only do I plan to go ON with the No Foreign Sky story, I also do plan to go BACK as well. I’ve had a prequel in mind from the beginning — basically similar to Little Fuzzy, of course, and similar to Golden Dream as well, except the enormously cute little species that is dying out are humans, of course, and the civilization that rescues the descendants of the long-lost human colonists are the turun. Why do I plan to write it? Basically for Reason Four: Author Enjoyment. It takes place so far in the past that there’s no character overlap, obviously. Worldbuilding, yes.
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