Sequels with a different cast?

[T.K.]

This is a question for readers and writers alike! How do you feel about sequels where the cast is different from the first book?

As a reader, I used to hate when a sequel changed anything about a group of characters. I didn't want new characters. I wanted every old character to stay. I didn't even want anybody to grow older. If there was a sequel to something, I pretty much wanted it to be The First Book Version 2.0.

However, when I started writing, suddenly I found myself feeling completely differently. As a writer, when I brainstorm sequels or new stories about the same cast/universe, I get very bored just thinking of writing a story where all of the elements are the same as something I'd previously written!

I wrote a series of fanfiction where, despite the core group of characters mostly staying the same, I changed the cast slightly in every story. I did this mostly because I was interested in exploring the dynamics between different people in the same group, as well as the new characters I kept throwing in, who were integral parts of the plot and then became part of the big happy family of protagonists from that point forward. I also wrote a separate fanfiction series for a different franchise where I actually made a point of introducing one new character in each story, and the whole group just kept getting larger - and more colorful and wonderful and fun - with each new addition. I greatly enjoyed writing both those series.

Plus, I think keeping everything the same does a great disservice to characters who have come alive in my imagination, and who I view as capable of growth and change just like real people. By the end of a story, I want my characters to have experienced some sort of growth, and I would expect that to carry over if I ever wrote anything about their subsequent lives.

So although young-reader-self is balking at the thought, the sequel to my first novel will take place six years after the original. Characters who were children in the first book are now teenagers, and they are the main characters in the sequel. Mostly this is because as I wrote the first book, I realized how bored I was with the characters who I originally intended to be the main protagonists!

I had a hard time with change when I was a kid, so that is probably why I didn't want things to ever change in books. The nice thing about books, though, is no matter how many sequels come along, you'll always have the original to go back to and re-live.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[Smaug]

This is a great question to ask yourself before you get too far into the sequels.

First thing to consider is this: what's the third book going to be like? It would make sense to do six-year time leaps between each book but only if you do it between EACH ONE and not to six between two and one between others.

Second thing: consider the state of the world at book one and book two. Does the state of it in book one demand that book two come after six years? Or is six years a ridiculous amount of time for events to halt? I mean, we miss a lot of character and world development over long time spans!

Third thing: what will it do for the characters and, more importantly, the audience? If all the characters start out as adults, then you can have big time leaps (as long as it makes sense, timeline-wise) because adults aren't developing as much, but if they're all kids, then you might want to make smaller time leaps. Harry Potter does this efficiently by skipping most of Harry's summer and getting straight to where the action starts before he goes back to Hogwarts, so the leap is never more than a few months, and thus we get to see Harry and his friends grow from kids to adults. If Rowling chose to do a five-year leap between books 1 and 2, that would be jarring because we've missed all of Harry's developing time, detracting from his character, and we started what we thought was a kid's book but it turns out to be a YA.
Sometimes authors (*cough* Ranger's Apprentice *cough*) make small leaps and a sudden huge leap when they see fit, and then decide to go back because they missed some part in a character's life that they wanted to explore. NEVER EVER do this. If you're going to make an abnormally large time leap after doing small ones, consider starting a new series. And whatever you do, don't include "flashback books" as the main series. Extras, yes, but never the main series. It shows a lack of planning on the author's part.

So, in answer to your question, consider why a time leap is needed, what it will do to the character and world, and what the audience will think.

Speaking from my personal project, my favorite WIP has huge time leaps between each book---decades between 1 and 2, and centuries between 2 and 3. However, I've structured my story and characters around the timeline, so it works for me. I mean, I essentially abandon the old characters each book! But hey! Each to their own.

[T.K.]

Those are good points to consider! Thanks for sharing!

I chose six years because the seed for this novel was a sketch I doodled a few years ago showing what the child characters would look like as teenagers. In the first book, they are 9 and 10 years old respectively, and the way I drew them as teenagers, they looked to be about 15 and 16.

Then, having drawn them as teenagers, I started to wonder what their lives might be like by six years after the first book. This intriguing sketch kept getting my creative gears turning, and before I knew it, I had a plot outlined.

I never intended to write a sequel to the first book and I have no plans to write anything else set in this universe, so I guess for me, this sequel isn't really about continuing a (non-existent saga); it just skips some relatively uneventful years and gets to another interesting thing that happens.

That being said, the two aforementioned fanfic series did not involve large gaps in time--in fact, I wrote them in "real time". For example, I wrote a fic in autumn 2013 that took place in autumn, and when I wrote the follow-up fic in spring 2014, it likewise took place in the spring following the first story. The cast in these stories did not change drastically from one story to the next, so it was fun to watch their gradual development (one character starts to learn magic, another character gets a new sword, etc.). But with those fics, I was more open to the idea of sequels and continuing adventures. Once I finished this novel, I was ready to move on to the next, unrelated book idea. It took years for me to formulate any concrete plans for a sequel and commit to it.

I guess as a writer, what gets me enthusiastic about a plot idea is how interesting I find it, regardless of where it sits in a timeline. I wouldn't want to write several lackluster "filler" books just to get to what I consider the good stuff.

I actually had that problem a lot when I was younger. When I tried to write something long, I usually found it a chore because I disliked having to spend a lot of time writing about anything I didn't particularly find interesting. I also mistakenly thought I had to write about everything, regardless of how relevant it was to the plot or what it did to the pacing. So of course I felt extremely overwhelmed at the prospect of writing about a dozen things that didn't much matter to me just to write about the parts that did.

I mean, if somebody can, as J. K. Rowling did, write a seven-book series where every school year is extremely eventful and interesting, that's awesome! I just don't have that fertile of an imagination, I guess.