The Worst Part of Writing Sequels

Sequels are so hard to write. Unless you write it like just one crazily long book that you just had to split into parts.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with the sequels I’m writing. I have two completed books whose sequels I’m working on now, and those sequels take place between one and three years after the end of the previous book (and no, there’s no getting around it. That much time has to have passed for the stories to work).

The most difficult thing about writing a sequel, as I am finding out, is the evolution of people’s relationships to each other, especially romantic ones.

Let’s say two people developed feelings for each other and even kissed in the first book, but they don’t officially end up as a couple by the end. But then at least a year passes in between books. What is their relationship going to be like? I have to just decide that they got together and are in love, basically. Because having their relationship still be undecided after a year in between that we don’t see just doesn’t make sense.

For another example, let’s say that two people never hooked up at all but the reader could tell they had feelings for each other, and then the book ends, and the second one starts 3 years later and those people have basically never been apart the whole time. Did they become a couple during this time that passed that we didn’t see, or are they just in limbo?

Good gods, sequels, stop being so difficult to write!