Dying
For A Sequel
By
Tj O’Connor, author of Dying to Know & Dying for the Past
The answers to the first two questions—sales and critics—is
fodder for a future blog. For now, the answer to “what the hell will you do for
an encore” is easy…Write a sequel.
And therein lies the terror. Oh, so many terrors. What if I
can’t capture the story and characters again? What if the first one fails and
the second one is worse? Worse… what if the first one is great and the second
one stinks? What if… And so goes the sleepless nights and reams of paper in
search of the solution.
When Midnight Ink demonstrated their class and stature in
the publishing world by signing me to write three novels in the Gumshoe Ghost series (note—this series title is not my doing…honest!), I
had already penned two more murder, different mysteries—New Sins for Old Scores, which my agent is currently trying to
place in the market (any of you publishing pros out there, here’s your chance…
call my Kimberley Cameron!) and The
Killing of Tyler Quinn, which is presently in rewrite. But Midnight Ink
wanted two more Oliver Tucker stories—the Gumshoe Ghost himself—so I teed up Dying for the Past, which will be out
January 8, 2015, and Dying to Tell, coming
in 2016.
The first dilemma I had was how to transition from book one
to book two, Dying for the Past. Let
me set the stage for the difficulties I had. Book one—Dying to Know—is the story of Oliver “Tuck” Tucker, a detective murdered
in the opening chapter who returns to help his wife, Angel, and former partner,
Bear Braddock, solve his crime. Of course, there are a half-dozen other important
characters, including Hercule, Tuck’s black Lab companion; Poor Nic, a
loveable/hateable retired mobster; and several secondary characters of note,
too. The story, as with all the sequels, intertwines a current murder with a
historical subplot involving murder and intrigue. The two story lines weave and
cross back and forth and conclude together. Always. Thus, there are two
timelines surrounding the characters—the present concerning the murder, and the
distant past surrounding the historical plot. Tuck can move between these
timelines and does to solve the cases. It’s like playing three dimensional
chess with dead bodies!
So, the dilemma was—do I treat Dying for the Past (book two) like a standalone story or write it
as though it’s simply the next chapter of a longer story. In my case, I took an
eclectic approach and wrote Dying for the
Past as a standalone story, but let the storyline flirt with Dying to Know (book one) as though a
continuing chapter in Tuck’s larger story. Thus, in Dying for the Past, I have an entirely new murder(s) and the
historical subplot that includes 1939 gangsters, Russian spies, and the search
for the book that has the key to
modern day spies and traitors. I reintroduced my characters, periodically mentioned
the plot and outcome of the Dying to Know—but
sparingly—and created a new cast of fresh good guys and bad guys to support those
returning characters from Dying to Know.
And, much to my pleasure, it worked—having a dead guy solve crimes creates a
lot of challenges!
Part of the allure of a good mystery is the characters. They
have fears, strengths, weaknesses, and history to unravel. After exhausting
myself trying to make Dying to Know a
good mystery novel, I was again terrified about how I would keep my main
characters fresh, interesting, and still a little mysterious to any reader who
already read the first novel. The danger would be having nothing new for the
reader to learn about them.
I found the solution by developing the second set of support
characters for Dying for the Past.
Each of the Gumshoe Ghost sequels will have new characters supporting the
story—after all, it’s a murder mystery so not all of them will make it to “The
End.” And these new characters allowed me to create new fears, strengths,
weaknesses, and storylines for my main characters to evolve. Human nature is
that way, right? How you act with one person is not always the same as with
another. How you respond to one situation or crisis is not always the same as
in another, particularly if new people are involved. I used these new
characters to drive my main character’s new storylines and, in doing that,
create new things for the reader to discover about them. In book one—Dying to Know— Tuck is learning how to
be a dead detective. In book two—Dying
for the Past—Tuck finds his family roots; and some are roses and some are deadly
nightshade, let me tell you. Now, Angel and Bear are coming to grips with
Tuck’s demise—after all, figuring out how to live and work with a dead guy isn’t
easy. There are other key characters, too—like Poor Nic, the loveable/hateable
retired mob boss—who has so many skeletons in his closet that Tuck can’t count
them.
As Tuck’s sequels continue, Tuck will learn more and more
about his family and with each one, have to investigate yet another historical
crime along with a new one. Angel and Bear will find out that life with and
without Tuck has a lot of twists and turns. The new characters in each sequel
will bring along their own baggage, influences on the main characters, and body
bags.
The biggest conflict I found in writing sequels was deciding
which characters to keep around and which to send on vacation. In book one—Dying to Know—I received a lot of great
comments about several characters—Poor Nic, the aforementioned love/hate mobster;
André Cartier, Angel’s uncle; Detectives Cal Clemens and Mike Spence, the
brilliant yet bumbling partners; and even Doc Gilley, Tuck’s spirit mentor. My
problem was, in book two—Dying for the
Past—I had a new crew of story characters to add and didn’t have room for
everyone to return. The questions were: who would sit out the sequels? How do I
explain where they went—not everyone can be sick or on vacation, right? Who
would be most popular or have the biggest impact on the series? The answer lay
in what I like to think was a brilliant strategy—I listened to my readers, asked my agent and publicist, and read who
the critics keyed on. Then, I ignored all that and kept those characters who moved
me. You see, certain characters came
alive to me—other than Tuck, Angel, and Bear, that is. They presented so many
possibilities for future stories and subplots that I had to keep them around
and use them to stir things up. In the end, if they stirred things up in book one,
they returned to book two. If not, they got the flu, moved away, were out to
lunch, on vacation… you get the idea.
After all is said, there were so many challenges to writing
my sequels, I cannot recall them all. But it suffices to say, they kept me up
many, many nights.
Dying for the Past is
a better novel than Dying to Know,
and I hope Dying to Tell is better
than both. You see, I think I’m learning as I go and my characters are teaching
me. Dying for the Past was
challenging, too, as it made me search for what I wanted from Tuck, Angel,
Bear, and even Poor Nic. With each sequel, I will try to challenge each of my
characters to keep my readers—and me—guessing. After all, I write what my
characters tell me—resistance to them is futile.
I’ve just wrapped Dying to
Tell—book three—and after explaining my process for dealing with sequels, I
have some rewriting to do! I hope you
enjoy Tuck’s cases in Dying to Know, Dying for the Past, and Dying to Tell… visit my site and drop me
a line. I’d love to hear from you!
This post has been reprinted from http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com where I am a monthly contributor.
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