Hey everybody!! I have a new author to introduce. :) Well, not new to the world, but new to this blog. ;) And she's awesome!
Krista Wayment has been making up stories since she learned to talk. Writing naturally grew out of that. Krista is an avid Fantasy and Science Fiction fan, and a total nerd. She is also a software engineer and loves playing video games. Although, curling up with a good book is still one of her favorite past times. Her website is www.kristawayment.com!
Isn't she great?? And even better, she's consented to writing a guest post. So without further ado, I'll give her the spotlight! (Don't forget to check out the giveaway at the bottom!)
Writing Sequels
A Guest Post by Krista Wayment
So of course it would make sense that I don't write stand-a-lone books. They are always in a series.
Writing the second book in a series, or a sequel is a lot different than writing a first book. First of all there isn't as much up front work to do. My characters are all fleshed out. I have my world. So I get to jump right into outlining.
A couple of things about my process: first, I wrote book 1 with only a vague idea of what I thought would happen in the rest of the books in the series. I had the main event for book 2 and a few major events and that’s all. I did it that way because the most important thing about a book is that it's self-contained—even if it is in a series.
Not outlining the whole series helped me focus on writing a complete story. So I started writing book 2 with nothing but the established back story, and the main event that I had already planned.
Three or four drafts of outlines later I was ready to start writing. It took me so long because the main decision I had to make was: where do I take my characters next? They needed to grow and learn a little bit more.
After that my process was pretty much the same as book one except it went a lot faster—since I've already done a book from start to finish, I kind of know how I work and what is best for me.
The biggest struggle for me with writing the second book was know how much to include about the events of the first book. I personally took the route of including just enough information that if a reader skipped book 1 (shame on them!) they wouldn't be lost but not so much that you could just skip reading book 1 altogether.
I also kept forgetting to remind the reader how much time had passed since book 1, how old my characters were now, and what they looked like. Awesome beta readers caught that for me.
Another thing about dealing with a sequel is foreshadowing future events in the series. I LOVE foreshadowing. I'm not amazing at doing the very sneaky stuff that leads you to a surprise ending (although I really wish that I was, maybe I can work on that.) But I like to drop hints about the end of the series in all the books.
How do I manage foreshadow? Well, I drop the fewest hints in book 1, then a few more in book 2 and so on until everything is revealed in the final book. Having an outline and general idea of what is going to happen through the rest of the series helps a lot. Knowing where I'm going helps me to leave clues for the reader as I go.
Overall, I really enjoyed writing a sequel and can't wait to get started on book 3. It's going to be awesome!
..........
Thank you, Krista!!
So now that you've gotten a peek at Krista's writing process, here is her beloved sequel!
Caught between an outcast dragon and his human prey, Renick and his friends must find a way to appease the dragon’s burning anger. Together, Renick, Thane and Lainey learn new magic, rescue a kidnapped friend, and evade the dragon hunters while they try to prevent a war. What they find is that not all burns can be healed.
Thanks for stopping by for the Burned blog tour! Buy the book here!
Bonnie Gwyn
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Love this! I am going to hunt down the first book as fast as I can! :D
ReplyDelete