Fear of Sequels

[yowser]

In the world of cinema (perhaps in many other arenas, although most glaring in film) there is a plague of sequels, the second effort rarely better than the original creation (although there are exceptions.) I am not considering deliberate multi-stage works (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.) but one film that is well received, and the decision gets made to do a sequel shortly thereafter. Rarely is the creative energy on the second an improvement.

Most of my stories are built to stand alone, although they may have related companions, with one or more of the same characters as part of the mix. I have done a few multi-part series, with mixed results (by both internal and external criteria.)

A recent story ended with not exactly a cliffhanger, but a situation that left the two characters in a situation that begged for (maybe whimpered for) a follow-up. I was prepared to be annoyed if there were calls for “More!” since I hadn't conceived of a proper continuation. Yet I was even more annoyed when NOBODY asked for more. Didn't you care about my carefully nurtured protagonist and her new companion? Don't you want to know what happens next?

The question to the group is how to handle the potential “follow-up” urges? Do you succumb to reader entreaties? Do you adhere only to the dictates of your own muse?

There are certainly works I have produced that inevitably led to the need for a followup (I thought the characters would finish their development in 10k words, but no, they hadn't fully ripened. They needed more.)

But what if YOU are finished, and the world wants more? How do you respond?

 

[Voboy]

Every one of my stories is interrelated, however distantly, and almost every one ends on something like a cliffhanger... a resolution that still leaves a tantalizing question. I routinely get asked to write sequels.

My response is that I write sequels, prequels, or other kinds of 'quels all the time... on MY schedule. Like you, I tend to think of my stories as stand-alones. Meaning the 'quel needs to be a stand-alone, too.

The exceptions are a very early story I conceptualized as a multi-part, and then two others that I turned into "part twos" just so that my readers would be clear on how they related to the original work. In other words, I made them "part ones" after the fact.

I don't generally succumb to pleas for a sequel, but there have been times that my readers have suggested some ideas that I've gone with. Not usually, though.

My opinion is that we write for us, not for them. We owe it to our readers, I think, to produce the best product we can provide. But the muse for that product comes from us, not from them. Unless they're paying.

 

[HeyAll]

I get those emails a lot and I politely decline and point them to similar stories that I've made, or mention that I'll keep the story in mind and make something similar in the future.

Erotica sequals don't have the fun of the build-up. Plus less people will read them. Better to spend more time making new stories.

 

[KeithD]

My stories are dropped by an internal muse that has worked most of the story out before dropping it into my consciousness. I ignore urges or requests for sequels until/unless my muse has dropped something else on it and then I let it happen. This often happens with characters I put in a story and later pop up as continuing characters. I neither force nor resist sequels of storyline, characters, or even setting. (I've just finished writing an anthology for the marketplace, where a glass house on the banks of Lake Como was used as the setting in a story--which became six different stories using the same setting.)

 

[Emirus]

In the world of cinema (perhaps in many other arenas, although most glaring in film) there is a plague of sequels, the second effort rarely better than the original creation (although there are exceptions.) I am not considering deliberate multi-stage works (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.) but one film that is well received, and the decision gets made to do a sequel shortly thereafter. Rarely is the creative energy on the second an improvement.

Most of my stories are built to stand alone...The question to the group is how to handle the potential “follow-up” urges? Do you succumb to reader entreaties? Do you adhere only to the dictates of your own muse?

My stories are written as stand alone but inevitably some stories, although not intended, do lean towards a sequel. But the trap to avoid is, as in the cinema, not to write a follow up just for the sake of it and end up with thousands of words of crap.

I wrote a story in Celebs, a year ago, and got several requests, via comments and pm, for a sequel which I would like to write. The problem is I would have to put in more time and effort to the sequel because I’d have to think about it more whereas the original just flowed out. It’s been suggested to me one from two years ago could be turned into a series, but that would need thinking about, and one in bdsm from which I intended to write a spin-off and I actually started that one. Unfortunately it’s one of about a dozen at various stages and new ideas keep getting in the way. Another problem is I’m not a quick writer and other things, apart from writing, divert me.

Do you succumb...? Only write and submit a story with which you’re happy.

 

[Brutal_One]

Sequels are difficult and rarely match the original. In part it is because characters may be the same and unless there are significant changes or new plots which may be tricky to seamlessly fit in it’s a tall order.

Brutal One

 

[yowser]

Thanks for thoughtful responses. Looks like most assume authorial responsibility and proceed accordingly.

Has anyone ever written a 'sequel' that turned out to be a mistake?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I’ve had quite a few requests for sequels, but only try if I am confident I can do justice to the first ones. Otherwise, I look on such requests as compliments. So, not that many, but they’ve all worked.

 

[Voboy]

Thanks for thoughtful responses. Looks like most assume authorial responsibility and proceed accordingly.

Has anyone ever written a 'sequel' that turned out to be a mistake?

Yup. That's why I didn't post it.

There it sits, waiting on my hard drive, like a guy on a street corner.

ETA: I've actually got about three. One's a direct sequel, one's a loose prequel, the third a loose sequel. There's nothing really "wrong with them," per se, but they just don't live up to my expectations for one reason or another despite being done, read for continuity, and ready to post.

 

[SimonDoom]

I would drop the word "fear" from the heading of the thread, because I think the reluctance to write a sequel to an erotic story usually is based on good judgment rather than fear.

The problem with writing a sequel to an erotic story, except in cases where the first story has from the beginning been intended just to be a first chapter in a longer series, is that after the first story the bloom is off the rose, and when that happens some of the erotic spice of the story is gone.

So much of erotica is about the crossing of a line. Once you cross it, you can't cross it again and get the same erotic tingle. So you have to find new lines, new angles -- something -- to recapture the magic of the first story. If, somehow, you are able to figure out a way to do that, then the question arises: why not just start a whole new story with your new angle? Why do a sequel at all?

I wrote a sequel to my incest story Late Night On The Loveseat With Mom, my most popular story. I thought I could recapture the popularity of the original, which, when I wrote it, had been intended to be complete and standalone. The sequel was fine; I enjoyed writing it and I was satisfied with it, and readers actually gave it a score slightly higher than the original. But it had only a little over one quarter of the readers of the first story, and to this day it gets nowhere near the daily views as the first one. In retrospect, I might have simply written a completely new story based on a similar plot, and it might have done better.

I don't write sequels anymore, unless I have planned from the beginning to do so. I see no point, either from the standpoint of artistic fulfillment or from the standpoint of winning more followers.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It depends how you define "sequel."

I have several inter-linked story arcs using the same common character but placing him into different stories, different environs. They've all done nicely, some better than others, depending what category they ended up in.

I'm basically lazy, so having one character I know backwards saves me time writing - my interest is always the other protagonists, not the leading man.

 

[yowser]

I would drop the word "fear" from the heading of the thread, because I think the reluctance to write a sequel to an erotic story usually is based on good judgment rather than fear.

Good point. My original title 'Fear & Trembling and the Sickness Unto Sequels' was both too long as well as pompous (I wasn't sure many would get the allusion anyway), and we had also just had a thread called 'Fear of Failure' which I thought I might riff on, but didn't, or haven't.

Some of my guesses have been confirmed, people have various characters that stick around, there are story arcs that bloom about in a network of relatedness, but ultimately the author decides when and if to do a follow-up or companion tale.

As for 'sequels' there is that old canard about Vivaldi, some claiming he was one of the most prolific of composers, with five hundred concertos (or whatever it is) or the least (ie. he wrote the same piece 500 different ways.)

 

[standingstones]

Unless I have the idea for multiple sequels I leave my stories as one story only. I do get emails asking me for multiple follow ups. Many times the person requesting then tells what plot line he wants to see. I certainly won’t write a story under those conditions. I write them back and state that if they have a plot in mind then write it themselves.

I do believe I have covered whatever plot lines I wrote about in the original story. No sense in going to the well a second time.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Unless I have the idea for multiple sequels I leave my stories as one story only. I do get emails asking me for multiple follow ups. Many times the person requesting then tells what plot line he wants to see. I certainly won’t write a story under those conditions. I write them back and state that if they have a plot in mind then write it themselves.

I do believe I have covered whatever plot lines I wrote about in the original story. No sense in going to the well a second time.

Well, I can myself see that some of my stories could do with a sequel. The problem, as you so correctly note, is that I have no idea what the plot would be. ‘Heroic boy saves beautiful girl from rabid mountain lion, fall in love, get their rocks off’. Good first story, but what’s next? Mortgage, 2 1/2 kids and PTA? It lacks something.

 

[NotWise]

Thanks for thoughtful responses. Looks like most assume authorial responsibility and proceed accordingly.

Has anyone ever written a 'sequel' that turned out to be a mistake?

It's not that easy to define "mistake."

When I first started publishing on Lit, I had a little backlog of stories waiting. I posted the first seven short chapters of "Unlikely Angels" just because I had a little lag. The stories were done, and those first seven chapters would end on a tragic note. I thought that would be okay.

It wasn't okay. If you want a tragic ending, it needs to be epic. The readers' screams of agony were so loud that I could hear the rending of cloth and the gnashing of teeth. So I published seven more parts -- twenty-one chapters in all.

I reached the point where I'd made the "big reveal," which was maybe halfway through the story, then I let the regular readers have a few weeks to read it and took it off the site. The rest of the story would have been more political and religious than it was erotic. I wasn't going to publish it on Lit.

"Unlikely Angels" was ripped off the site over and over, and published on other sites, some of which gave it really nice, sexy presentation. That had nothing to do with my decision to take it down.

I still have "A Valentine's Day Mess" to finish, and it's a huge labor. I originally published it as what I thought would be a standalone story, but I had another story in the back of my mind that I'd written a couple years earlier. I let that story seep into the ending of "A Valentine's Day Mess," and the ending became a cliff hanger. In retrospect, it was intentional, but not well thought-out.

Readers demanded more, so I gave them more. Now I have two chapters in part two, and five chapters in part three. I have parts four and (the final) part five in progress, but they're just a bitch to write.

As far as I'm concerned it was a mistake -- despite the ratings on part three rocking over 4.9 for like five months.

If you start your sequel, then you need to finish it. Anything else is a mistake.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Unless I have the idea for multiple sequels I leave my stories as one story only. I do get emails asking me for multiple follow ups. Many times the person requesting then tells what plot line he wants to see. I certainly won’t write a story under those conditions. I write them back and state that if they have a plot in mind then write it themselves.

I do believe I have covered whatever plot lines I wrote about in the original story. No sense in going to the well a second time.

I've had a strange experience recently in which I found a comment from a year ago where some anonymous guy (I assume it's a guy) had a plot not for a sequel but for how he thought the existing story should go. I blew him off with a rebuttal.

Then this year, on some intuition, I experimented with a version that followed his ideas. And damn if it didn't work, and then that lead to several sequel ideas. (The actual number depends on where I break the chapters.) All that in turn will be a prequel for a bunch of older unfinished stories I never could pull together.

How did this random person become my accidental muse?

 

[standingstones]

You might follow up by making the next story more gritty or go down the forbidden sex route. I see you haven’t written any incest stories. If you don’t like those type of tales, so be it but they are very popular I can tell you. You may even try a twist in the story. Maybe someone find the lovers out and wants a threesome. There are many options to try. Good luck! Standingstones

 

[Emirus]

Unless I have the idea for multiple sequels I leave my stories as one story only. I do get emails asking me for multiple follow ups. Many times the person requesting then tells what plot line he wants to see. I certainly won’t write a story under those conditions. I write them back and state that if they have a plot in mind then write it themselves.

I do believe I have covered whatever plot lines I wrote about in the original story. No sense in going to the well a second time.

So you have a fan who takes the trouble to send you an email and tells you he enjoyed the story so much he’d like to read a sequel. He’s thought about it and even come up with an idea for the sequel. You write back and basically tell him to stuff it. Don’t you think that’s unkind?

You could have just not replied or you could have said you’re glad he enjoyed the story and you’ll add his idea to all the other story ideas you have spinning around in your head at the moment. That would have left him with a much better impression of what you’re like and keep him as a reader.

 

[Emirus]

I've had a strange experience recently in which I found a comment from a year ago where some anonymous guy (I assume it's a guy) had a plot not for a sequel but for how he thought the existing story should go. I blew him off with a rebuttal.

Then this year, on some intuition, I experimented with a version that followed his ideas. And damn if it didn't work, and then that lead to several sequel ideas. (The actual number depends on where I break the chapters.) All that in turn will be a prequel for a bunch of older unfinished stories I never could pull together.

How did this random person become my accidental muse?

I had someone, anonymous naturally, who wrote about 300 words telling me what was wrong with the first paragraph of my story and how, in his opinion, it should have been written. He didn’t comment on the rest of the story so perhaps he didn’t read it. The story was only about 5000 words so he could have read it in less time than it took to think about and compose his comment. I responded with a thank you for him taking the time to help me improve my writing skills.

As for for what’s happened with your guy’s idea and it actually leading to you writing more stories that’s really weird. But good. The human mind is a fascinating piece of ingenuity.

 

[Emirus]

I have one story for which several people have asked me to write a revenge-sequel. No idea how these readers got the idea that my characters would be the kind of people to take revenge. No idea how these readers got the idea that I'm the kind of person to write revenge-stories. I explained, after the first message, that I wasn't going to do that, but requests kept coming.

These requests gave me the feeling those readers had no idea about what I'd been trying to create, or didn't care about my motives. I found this offensive, in particular those requests after I'd already explained I wasn't going to do it. Let them write their own stories.

If I’ve got it right, you’re saying the requests were in the public comments and you explained in the comments you weren’t going to write a story along those lines. In that case I’d consider it offensive and probably look at whether to delete comments including my explanation. I just feel in the case of the email I quoted I think if you find it offensive you should consider whether to just ignore the email and not reply.

99% of those who comment, particularly anonymously, never come back to read what other readers have said. They’ve made their comment and moved on. As I’ve said, comments from people after you’ve explained you won’t be writing a sequel, I would consider offensive. They probably haven’t read what others, including yourself, have written.

 

[sirhugs]

I have had good luck with sequels- my highest scores are for series- but seldom plan them. I do tend to leave a hook at the end of a story to permit a sequel if I decide to write it.

I appreciate the encouragement of comments requesting a sequel but that is never the deciding factor- it is about whether I feel a need to know more of the story of those characters; how much time I have; and what else I might write instead.

 

[AlinaX]

I often have commenters asking for a sequel to something I intended as a standalone. I often say I'll think about it - honestly enough - but it's very rare to find an interesting story to tell as an unintended sequel.

One of my Nude Day stories, Internude, a very short story, has had a few people demanding more. I'd never considered it as anything more than a one-off, but it now has three sequels, each with very different POVs. All of which is kinda ironic, because it's not a subject I particularly like writing about.

 

[tomlitilia]

After publishing my first story, I got persuaded to continue it by readers asking for more. I guess I had gotten fond of the main character too, so why not let her have more fun. But the interesting story was already told in what I first published. The quality deteriorated, and I never really finished the sequel plot. The problem, as I see it, is that the most important feature of a story is the arc of the main character; he or she must evolve to overcome or achieve something. To continue the story once that is done, you either have to tread water or come up with a new evolution. The former is boring, and the latter is challenging if you didn't plan for it from the start. Nowadays I only publish multi-chapter stories once all chapters are complete.

My advice: only continue a story if you think there is a natural sequel-plot with the characters from the first. Otherwise, it might be better to tell the new story idea as a stand-alone piece, using new characters that fits more precisely with the plot.

 

[davion2308]

Writing for Others

I find the stories I write myself, for me, are often the ones that score higher. I get 4.35 and more when the story is completely my idea and I love it and I wrap myself up in the character and the situation.

I have written a number of stories (or at least tried to) for others who've asked or made suggestions or requests. Those stories are scored lower. I can write for others, whether they want something specific or they want the sequel, but I can't do it as well, plain and simple.

I avoid sequels unless it makes sense. Ex/Voy, for example, is about pushing boundaries. After so long, though, there isn't anything else to push through. It just kinda ends and there's not much left that isn't natural. That's when characters start doing things your readership think they'd never do and you get scorched for it.

I write when it feels correct. Otherwise, no sequels, no extras.

 

[sirhugs]

After publishing my first story, I got persuaded to continue it by readers asking for more. I guess I had gotten fond of the main character too, so why not let her have more fun. But the interesting story was already told in what I first published. The quality deteriorated, and I never really finished the sequel plot. The problem, as I see it, is that the most important feature of a story is the arc of the main character; he or she must evolve to overcome or achieve something. To continue the story once that is done, you either have to tread water or come up with a new evolution. The former is boring, and the latter is challenging if you didn't plan for it from the start. Nowadays I only publish multi-chapter stories once all chapters are complete.

My advice: only continue a story if you think there is a natural sequel-plot with the characters from the first. Otherwise, it might be better to tell the new story idea as a stand-alone piece, using new characters that fits more precisely with the plot.

even if there is a natural plot follow-up, it is easy to get tired of characters. If you are tired of them, I suggest not going on with a sequel.