The Two Ways I've Encountered Writing Sequels

 I’ll admit, this is a strange title, but it makes the most sense to me to phrase it this way. At this point, I’ve written (or am in the process of writing) four universes where the books have sequels. In my experience, I’ve done this in one of two ways, and I’m going to tell you about those two ways now. 

The first way, and the way I prefer, is plotting the entire series as one book, and writing all of them in succession as such. I have a complicated history with this kind of plotting for series. As I mentioned last week, this is how I plotted the first two books of The Healing x3 Trilogy, and really liked it. This is how I intend on writing My Multiverse--which I’ve vaguely hinted at and will give more details on soon--to a degree. In case you missed it, the idea behind My Multiverse is a series of books that do not have to be read in a specific order but that are connected through characters and take place in the same universe. For this, I intend to keep the universe closed with the eight projects I currently have in it, and not continue to add to it. I have an order for the books, and I’m hoping that I’ll manage to write them th.at way. 

The second way is the more disjointed way. Basically, writing one book, and then when it’s done, and potentially after writing other projects, deciding that I want to add a sequel. I did this for Part Three of the Healing x3 Trilogy, and The Cora Anthology. With The Cora Anthology, I decide one right after the other that I was writing sequels, so it wasn’t too challenging to come back to it. For the Healing x3 Trilogy, it’s been a bit more of a mental challenge to get back into the project as I’ve been working on some other things between Part Two and Part Three, but I’m determined to make it work and, pun intended, book end the series. 

Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this that I have written or want to write four series, but I’ve only mentioned three. The remaining series is what I’m referring to as the Love Through Agony Duology. Love Through Agony is the first novel I wrote about my endometriosis, and there is a sequel in the works for that. However, I expect that series to grow with me, and I have no intentions of book ending that series until I'm old and grey. I still prefer plotting out all of the series at once, but with this series, I’m writing very candidly about my experience with endometriosis, and I need to continue experiencing things to write about. I don’t know if I'll ever be able to capture my affection for Tobias in words, but there’s no way I’m giving him up as I continue to go on my endo journey. 

So, there you have it. My experience writing sequels, and the way that I prefer doing them. Will I continue to decide to add random sequels to novels? Yes, probably. I just have so many stories to tell, and if that means they need sequels, then so be it.

That's all for now, folks!

-C

The Whimsical Side of Writing

Fair warning: this doesn’t really talk that much about writing, but I promise it is related to some degree. 

As I’ve been spending a lot of time working on what I’m referring to as My Multiverse (where I’m connecting novels in a universe, but not in series), I’ve developed this desire to really explore my writing universes in as many different ways as possible. Obviously, my characters are real to me and I can visualize their worlds in a way that really no one else can, but I want to bring that connection to my readers, too. So, how do I suppose I’m going to do this? 

The first thing I already do, but I’m expanding on it: my playlists. For those of you who don’t know, I always include a playlist page at the end of my novels for songs that remind me of the novel. I’ve slowly been altering the themes behind the playlist, but for the projects I’m currently working on, those themes are really changing. Instead of just doing the songs that remind me of the book, I’m also creating specific playlists for the characters. For example, one of the playlists I’m working on is a character’s go to break up playlist. Stuff like that. It helps me dig into the characters a bit more, and just makes them seem a bit more real. 

The next thing I want to do comes down to something that I have loved doing for years, and that is designing outfits. Now, I’m not going to draw every single outfit that the characters wear, but for special events like prom or going to weddings, I want to design what they’re wearing for it. I loved drawing dresses growing up, so this is kind of an extension of that. I have no idea if these are going to end up anywhere, but I love the idea of combining two things that I love doing--writing and designing clothing. 

In a similar vein, I used to spend time drawing house blueprints and floor plans for them. Naturally, I want to continue this. Whenever I’m writing, I have an idea in my head of what the houses look like, and specifically my character’s rooms. So, I want to take this a step further and draw these out for myself to really visualize them. My hope is that through expanding on my visualization of the worlds around my characters, I can make them more vivid for my readers, too. 

The last thing I want to do is spend more time writing whimsical scenes that won’t necessarily make it into the final draft of my projects. Writing is supposed to be a fun thing, and I want to really let myself enjoy that. Yes, accomplishing things and making progress is important for me, but I also want to let myself enjoy writing more. I’m also not writing a ton right now anyway, since I’m doing so much plotting, so making more time to write fun stuff is definitely important to me. 

I guess the point of this is that I want to spend more time doing cozy things that support my writing, even if that doesn’t mean making a lot of tangible production progress. I think it’s really easy to get stuck in the mindset of having to make progress, even if you are enjoying what you’re working on. This year, I’m going to try to have more fun with my writing. Or be more whimsical, if you will. 

That's all for now, folks!

-C