On Sequels (part one of what I’m sure will be many)

In the comments section of the last post, TJ Brown wrote:

Yay! for starting on your sequel. I am wondering how I will do that if the Rink Rats series ever sells…go back to a world and characters that you left a long time ago. I think it would be very odd. Well, hopefully I will get the chance!

I’ve been lucky, because I knew before I was three chapters into the book that it had series potential, before I was five chapters in that we were going to be shopping it as a series, and before I wrote a word past chapter six that my publisher had committed to not only the first Secret Society Girl book, but also to its sequel. Because I had that committment, it freed me up to be thinking about what I wanted to do with the sequel even as I was writing the book.

At the same time, however, I wanted to make Secret Society Girl very much a stand-alone project. At the forefront of my mind was some commentary I’d heard on one of the Buffy DVDs. Josh Whedon said he wanted every season finale to be capable of being a series finale. I very much hope that the readers will want to read more about my heroine and her adventures, but the book has a beginning, middle, and end that work all by themselves.

(Now, as far as SSG2 goes… well, I hope it will be accessible to first-timers, but even more than that, I hope it will get them intrigued enough to run out and buy SSG! That’s what happened to me when I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in 2000.)

I think, for me, the key has been the knowledge that I’m not “going back” as much as I am “going forward.” I am taking my heroine and her friends into uncharted territory and seeing how they handle it. As I told my editor the other day, the last book was about an outsider; this book is about an insider.

The “going back” part has mostly been in the form of putting myself in the mindset of a senior in college. I’ve been listening to the music I listened to in college, remembering the books I read, even looking at old pictures and syllabi. I don’t think Amy listens to much Dave Matthews Band or anything, but it makes me think of college when I do, of the way I thought about boys and sex and school and friends and the future. Being back in her head is fun. In many ways, reading over the book in page proofs made me start thinking of things I would have done differently. Turns out that Amy’s been wondering some of the same stuff. She’s got another chance now.