Congratulations, you’ve just developed your own universe. Now what?

Hi all,

In this writer’s opinion, your second book may be even more important than your first one. Though the first novel ‘sets the stage’ so to speak, introducing your reader to a new universe and new ideas (in my universe, Dracula and Erik are buddies), the second novel provides the momentum to take the reader further into the universe that you’ve created. Hopefully, by the time the reader is done with your second novel, they will have become even more interested/invested in your characters and their situations and will want to read a third or even a fourth book.

Besides ensuring that your second book doesn’t follow the ‘formula’ of your first book (new plot, more new characters introduced, etc), you need to be able to be flexible as a writer to grow with your universe. What does that mean exactly? Well, as I’ve said, I’m a reader as well as a writer and with regard to the former, I’ve followed several authors over their writing life, some for double digit years (one writer for more than twenty years). In that time period, it is interesting to see the universe that you love as a reader begin to unfold and expand, sometimes in ways that you never thought it would after reading the very first novel in the series.

And that’s the important thing. Because though you may write in a genre (I’m a romance writer), you have to be ready to adjust to fit your character/universe’s needs. As I’ve just said, each book should be unique in plot, so therefore, one book may be more about romance whereas another book in the series may have more action or death or humor.
Not that every book shouldn’t have romance but one aspect or even several, may become more prominent as your universe and books move along. Therefore, as a writer you need to be sensitive to your character and their growing pains and need to be able to easily move and shift gears as the need to do this arises. And the need may come up just when you least expect it so be aware of this. If you cannot do this and remain static in your writing, your universe will also become lifeless and boring as well. As a reader I always liked reading book series since I enjoyed following the character (s) along his/her journey in life. Though the character may only exist between the printed pages, if one is a good writer, a character can feel almost ‘real’ to a reader. They will become very interested to your characters and therefore, will want to continue to read to see what happens next.

So, I guess my advice to the readers of this blog would be to be able to be flexible as a writer, that is, to be able to change and adapt to your universe’s needs. If suddenly a book needs to be an overall action book or even more violent than you are used to writing, it is important that you are able to adjust your writing style accordingly. It can be a difficult thing (I am still working on writing humor, it is the toughest for me to do, I think) to adapt your writing style with each successive book. But the readers of your universe will enjoy the characters more. And you probably will too.

Take care all,
Chris



PS--Happy Holidays! Enjoy and have fun:)