Here is yet another post about how I’m working on the sequel to Reborn. I need people to bounce ideas off of (person reading this: that means you), and, whether you’ve read Reborn or not, you may be able to help me with some of these. If anything, I think that merely getting these ideas down will help me reorganize my thoughts. Because, you see, I’m a bit stuck. Thankfully, it’s not for a lack of ideas. I have a lot of ideas (yay!), but I’m not sure how I want to go about organizing them into a series. The Reborn series was supposed to be a trilogy, but it has possibly exploded into four or five books.Points-of-View
One of the issues I’m struggling with is that I chose to write Reborn in first person (from Siobhan’s perspective), which I don’t really regret, because I like getting inside my characters’ heads. But Siobhan and Jasper’s story (the primary conflict in Reborn) isn’t the only one I want to tell. For instance, I thought of a great idea for a book from her friend Anna’s POV. I think Anna would get her own novel, and she’s a much more perceptive person than Siobhan, so her voice would be more poetic. (Siobhan and Anna are from the same small town, so their voices wouldn’t be drastically different, but I definitely want to incorporate some distinctions.) The only problem I’m facing with this is that it would be kind of a parallel novel to Reborn, or at least the first part of it would be. It would end up being book 1.5 in the Reborn series or something. Okay, I’d round it up to book 2. My other concern is that I wouldn’t want to release Anna’s book next at all because Reborn ended in a cliffhanger, and it’s likely if readers care at all, they want to know what’s going to happen to Siobhan and Jasper.
Also related to POV: The other sequel I have envisioned would be from two first person POVs. I think I can make this work, but I’m a little worried it might be too ambitious for a second book. One of my favorite authors, Karen Marie Moning, has pulled this off well, but she waited at least three or four books into her Fever series to experiment with voices. (Side note: Admittedly, I used to have really weird pet peeves when it came to what I felt were “jarring” changes in POV, but I’m slowly getting over this, ha! Now I can see why authors do this. We think of other stories we want to tell along the way.) Maybe I should take a step back. Right now I have three main couples whose relationships I want to explore. Like I said, Siobhan and Jasper were the main focus in Reborn. Carly is a secondary character in Reborn, but I’ve known what happens to her character for quite some time: I’d like to introduce that in the sequel and write it partially from her POV. Finally, like I said earlier, I think Anna and her man (lol) might get a book by themselves. The problem is the events in these two books would probably overlap. I know this sounds confusing. I’m starting to confuse myself…I may just need to revisit my outlines…
I guess I could write both books and release them around the same time with a suggested reading order, but that sounds hard. In fact, writing is kinda hard. Why am I doing this again? Oh, right, because I love it! Even when my brain doesn’t want to work…
Book Titles
Okay, this is less of a confusing mess. I’m just curious to hear your opinion on the matter of book titles. Originally, every title in this series was going to be a word with an “re” prefix (Reborn, Relapse, etc). Then I thought maybe it would be better for the word “Reborn” to appear in every title so readers could associate it with the same series (Reborn, Darkness Reborn–maybe not that exactly, but you get the idea). I’ve seen both (Think Divergent, Insurgent, etc. versus Darkfever, Bloodfever, and on). To be honest, I might stick with the title Relapse anyway since it goes so well with the theme I have in my head, but I’m still curious what other writers and readers think.
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Hmm….I think your head may be in too many places. I know how much you’d love to get inside your other characters heads, but it might be confusing if you retell the SAME story in a few different books. It’s overkill. You could do the double POV thing, but you write in first person and I think that’d be harder to switch back and forth than if you were writing in the third person and switching POV’s. I don’t write first person, so I don’t really have any other suggestions. It’d work if you made the next books in third person, but then it wouldn’t be consistent throughout the series, so that’s probably a no no too.
I have heard of people doing short novellas or pre-quels as a “spin-off” to the books in the series, so maybe you could do something like that. A free read or something. It’d be like an added treat for your readers and entice them to pick up the main books in the series. I just think it wouldn’t be a good idea to have two separate books telling the same exact story. Pick one POV for each book (or two if you want). If you want to do a spin-off, make sure it tells a story/scene that isn’t in one of the books.
And as far as a series goes, Reborn could be book one of “The Fallen Series” or whatever you want to call it. Then your books would be united and still be able to have unique titles, unless you’re set on keeping them very alike. I’d suggest thinking of a new name for your series maybe. I hope that helped.
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Thanks Heidi! I think you’re right about sticking to one or two perspectives for one book, since it’s in first person. I would also make it clear for the reader when it switched.
Now that I think about it, Anna’s novel would be sort of a spin off–I called in a parallel novel, but in no way would it be telling the same story again from her perspective. It’s a completely different concept.
Good idea to give it a series name, but yeah, I still can’t decide what that would be, lol. Thanks for your thoughts! It’s nice to have someone to talk about this with. 🙂
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*Well, not a completely different concept, but a different story. Other events going on at the same time.
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Anytime! And yeah, if it’s a different story line than what’s going on in the main books, go for it! Novellas are a great way to hook readers. Or so I’m told. Also, have you ever thought of doing a short story about Jasper and Siobhan? Like the lifetime before this when they were together? I think that sounds like a great idea 😉 I’d love to read that!
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Ooooo I like that idea, too! I definitely want to go back and write it at some point! 🙂
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i agree with the other commenter. It would be overkill to rewrite the same story more than once from different points of view. People read books because the ending is a mystery – no one will read a book that’s supposed to be new, when they already know the ending, even if they loved the story the first time it was told. I loved Hunger Games, but I wouldn’t read the story again if Suzanne Collins told it from Peeta’s perspective. Multiple POVs in one novel is ambitious, but not impossible and probably a better option (see Song of Ice and Fire Series…more POVs than you can count there!)
I think the trouble is you have so many great ideas and you want to give a stage to each and every one. Authors just can’t do that – you’ll overload your reader and make him give up. What I suggest is journaling all your ideas and through that process, pick out the most interesting plot lines, or combine some. I know it hurts, but some stuff will have to go in the trash.
Is there any way your excess of ideas for this book can be modified and utilized in a different story?
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Hi Shelley! Thanks for stopping by and for your advice! I talked about a “parallel novel” in my post, but a “spin-off” is probably a better word for it. Some of the events in the spin-off will have happened at the same time as the events in my first book, but they’re different events. I have no plans to write the exact same story from 2 or more perspectives. I would argue that in certain situations you can get away with that, but I would say after you have an established fan-base and you know your readers would love it. For example, when Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight from Edward’s POV and posted it on her web site. But like I said, I don’t have plans to do anything like that.
After reorganizing my thoughts, I have a true sequel to my first book and then the spin-off book. The sequel will probably be from two POVs. They’re first person POVs so I wouldn’t want to do any more than that! Actually I tried to get through A Game of Thrones once, but it jumped around too much for me–even though I think it was an omniscient narrator.
…too much information, right? Haha! Thanks again for your thoughts! Journaling is helpful–back to my outlines I go! Happy holidays!
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I lik
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Whoops…hit send before finishing my comment lol. Mobile viewing is always so touchy!
I like where you’re going with this, all of it. I’m reading Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. She wrote Gone Girl and both books were told in two peoples POVs. The main character, and backdated journal entries of his wife (in Gone Girl), first person in Dark Days with third person view from the other characters. It’s interesting and I’m enjoying it so I think you’d totally be alright to do Anna’s POV. Plus you could always release the second one (following up the cliffhanger) and publish Anna’s as a prequel.
Either way, I’m down!
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Am pleased you’re thinking about some spin-offs for the other characters; the whole mythology angle provides huge scope. I agree with Heidi’s suggestion about a story recounting Siohban and Jasper’s previous life together, that opens up all sorts of possibilities…
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I agree, Greek mythology provides a lot of possibilities–a lot of inspiration! I’d like to write a novella or something about their past life together…I’m glad I have a few people interested in reading something like that!
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Well, you’ve certainly captured my interest, and as your writing career progresses I hope we’ll be seeing much more from you…
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