a reflection on sequels

[marycatelli]

Inspired by Beasts and Cursed Child -- the place to set up for sequels is not in the end of a story, but in the middle. Not always by planting problems. Another approach is planting world-building to not only show that the world is wide, but that there are other problems. Or have been.

To be sure, Harry Potter had the sequel problem that the problem of the books was explicitly portrayed as larger than any other, leading to issues of anticlimax when trying to go on. But it did have Grindelwald, which raised the possibility of other evil wizards.

To set up for a sequel -- if one is wanted, and if you know it enough in advance -- there might have been openings for planting more history. Such as, while trying to claim that Voldemort didn't come back, the Ministry could claim it was an absurd as this, that, or the other wizard, of whom it was also said that he came back, but it had been proven false. Or allusions to past fights against past evil wizards. Or even mentions in history class.

The fun part is that you don't need to use any of those for the sequel if the world is convincing enough that the reader would believe that another evil wizard arose.

Comments

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem is the story growing in the telling. There's pretty good evidence that, when JK Rowling was writing the first novel, she was just writing that story. It was only when that story became a huge success that she started expanding it to a seven-book series, and then an open-ended world where there could be many stories. So she didn't even think of planting such hooks in the first novel because she had no idea she might need them to be there.

[marycatelli]

actually, she intended a seven-book series from the start. She had trouble selling it because she wanted a contract for the whole thing.

She definitely did not realize quite what she was getting into, on internal evidence, and she certainly didn't plan for more.

Of course, you don't want to sacrifice the current work on the altar of sequels, if only because no sequel is required for a work that flops.