I wrote earlier this week about my distaste for sequels simply for the sake of sequels, so this post may seem to the unintelligent to be a contradiction of that. However, it's not. Instead, it's about those who have planned out sequels or more story in advance, and the foresight necessary to do so.
I enjoy dropping subtle hints into my work, whether those hints are about future stories, or if they're about later in the current one. In Salvation Day, I put in several small hints to give insight into the later parts of the book. They were intended to be innocuous and, thus, only picked up on by the most discerning of readers. Much like The Sixth Sense, they were intended to make the second reading more enjoyable as people started looking for the clues that were buried but perhaps not noticed the first time they read the story. I did the same things in Akeldama and Wrongful Death(although not nearly as much in the latter).
Additionally, both Akeldama and Salvation Day are intended to have sequels. I have not yet figured everything out, but there are major plot points that I've already thought through, and there are clues about those plot points in both works. I'll be real curious to see if people figure them out as they read the next story, or if it'll make the second reading better. Or, maybe the clues won't get noticed at all and will prove to be a big waste of time. Whatever the case, such things were fun to include.
Where this post relates to my previous one is that while it was fun to write the clues into these previous works, they were intentionally planned. I'm not glomming onto some obscure bit of throwaway dialogue that was never meant for a future work and shoving it into the story. I've seen writers do that - my distaste for it in the Star Wars universe, especially in Thrawn, is no secret - and it makes my skin crawl every time. It always feels like someone is trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, and it never feels right.
When you plan out a story, create those hints if you can. Don't make them obvious, or else it's no fun...but make it fun for intelligent readers to find. If you can do that, you'll gain a reputation for going beyond simple storytelling and into mind blowing tales that people want to read again and again.
I enjoy dropping subtle hints into my work, whether those hints are about future stories, or if they're about later in the current one. In Salvation Day, I put in several small hints to give insight into the later parts of the book. They were intended to be innocuous and, thus, only picked up on by the most discerning of readers. Much like The Sixth Sense, they were intended to make the second reading more enjoyable as people started looking for the clues that were buried but perhaps not noticed the first time they read the story. I did the same things in Akeldama and Wrongful Death(although not nearly as much in the latter).
Additionally, both Akeldama and Salvation Day are intended to have sequels. I have not yet figured everything out, but there are major plot points that I've already thought through, and there are clues about those plot points in both works. I'll be real curious to see if people figure them out as they read the next story, or if it'll make the second reading better. Or, maybe the clues won't get noticed at all and will prove to be a big waste of time. Whatever the case, such things were fun to include.
Where this post relates to my previous one is that while it was fun to write the clues into these previous works, they were intentionally planned. I'm not glomming onto some obscure bit of throwaway dialogue that was never meant for a future work and shoving it into the story. I've seen writers do that - my distaste for it in the Star Wars universe, especially in Thrawn, is no secret - and it makes my skin crawl every time. It always feels like someone is trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, and it never feels right.
When you plan out a story, create those hints if you can. Don't make them obvious, or else it's no fun...but make it fun for intelligent readers to find. If you can do that, you'll gain a reputation for going beyond simple storytelling and into mind blowing tales that people want to read again and again.
My husband & I love to speculate about clues we find in the stories we read together.
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