Is Writing a Sequel Harder? | Novel Sequels | Series vs Standalone | Sydney Faith

I’ve recently finished the second draft of my work in progress Olexia Legends 2

and since this is the first true sequel I’ve ever written I learned quite a few

things from the process so I thought this would be a good video topic to

make just sharing some of the things that I’ve learned of the differences between

writing a standalone or the first in series and a sequel novel [upbeat guitar music]

So the first thing is the characters. Continuing the story of an already established character

has been quite different for me from writing a character who is new to the reader because

the readers will already have a really strong sense of who this character is it makes a few

things a little bit different when it comes to writing about them something challenging about

this is keeping the characters true to themselves while still allowing them room to grow I knew from

before I began writing the first book in my Olexia Legends series that this was going to be a series

so I intentionally left room for my characters to grow as the series continues on they're kind

of like little house plants you know? When you first get them they're in a little tiny plastic

container and then as they continue to grow you have to keep transferring them from larger to

larger containers. By the end of the first book they have grown into their new container right?

So then once you start the second book you have to transfer them into a larger container so to speak

we're staying with this plant theme so yeah that is something that I was careful of and made sure

that I would always be allowing space for them to change and grow as characters as the series

evolves and while I was outlining of course I also have to keep this in mind to make sure that I have

more to build on next time this is mostly done by having them figure out their trauma

then inflicting new trauma that compacts with their old trauma to make things even worse

seriously though it's just really different from writing them the first time around when you're

working with the same characters in a new story every choice that they make is not only affected

by the backstory that I’ve created behind the scenes as a writer but also by the backstory

that is the previous books in the series that the reader has experienced along with them

it's a small difference in theory but in practice I have found that it actually is

pretty different feeling from every single decision you have to make you have this whole

backlog of decisions they've made before and it just feels more

not stressful it feels more important every choice that I decide to have them make is also based on

all these other choices that they made in the past that the reader has experienced along with them

and that just makes things a little more complicated I find that it does make lots

of little things like this more difficult. So next on to world building I personally didn't find that

much of a difference in world building from this book to its predecessor but I think that mainly

comes from this being a fantasy book a lot of the places that the reader and characters have been

before don't have to be re-explained but that all these new places that they're going to do

have to be explained so I guess there are slight differences in making sure the reader remembers

the details that are important about the places the characters go that they've been before in the

story so the things that have stayed the same that the reader already knows about are pretty

easy to re-explain to them and remind them about this is why this is like this or whatever having