I wrote book 2 first...?

Or it could just be that your character has a highly-developed backstory that makes it feel as if it's book 2, and that's not a bad thing. I remember a short story I published that read as if the events briefly referred to as happening previously had been part of an earlier story. It added to the conviction the story carried and made it a better story, imo, whether or not the earlier story ever existed.

I 2nd Buffysquirrel here. Imo, part of creating great characters is having the reader feel like they existed prior to this story and will exist after the story. I think it comes down to, is your protagonist's history a standalone story in itself?

As I write my novel, I'm realizing that the protagonist's backstory/motivation is becoming more and more a standalone story that can be told, while initially I wasn't planning on telling that story, I'm thinking now it'll have to be told.


One way to handle it is the way Stephen King handled Rolands backstory in The Dark Tower series, was by having one of the books (I think it was 5th or 6th) being framed by Roland sitting around a fireplace telling his companions the story of his past. This technique might help you if you don't think the backstory can be a full novel, you could make it like a short-story and have the info relayed that way.

So maybe you'll end up with an agent who thinks your book needs a prequel and you can sell both. It is possible to work backward rather than toward sequels.

It worked for George Lucas. Heh.

Isilya said:

It reads like a book 2. Then I realized why. A lot of my protagonist's motivations are stemming from his recent past.

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I did that, too, which is why I'm having difficulty with my wip. It's constrained by the first story in that the characters can't do anything that contravenes actions or statements made then.

It also worked for C.S. Lewis (Narnia).

caw

Isilya said:

A lot of my protagonist's motivations are stemming from his recent past.

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There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's not uncommon in the least.

This actually happened to me as well. I had all these ideas and wrote them out, then realized 'hey...there's all this stuff that happened before.'

I think it happens quite frequently, and the way I'm working with it is by writing the prequel, which deals with the events somewhat referenced in the book that was completed.

The important thing to look at is if the book can stand alone, even with the information about the past. If you need to put in mountains of explainers about motives and such, it might be best to either do some editing, or just them as references and do a prequel later. (which is what I'm doing)

The way I see it, it means you might have a series on your hands, so that could be fun!

In the prologue of the second book of the Ender's Game series, Orson Scott Card mentions this same phenomenon. He wrote the second book and realized that too many of the underlying tones and actions stem from past experiences that he just had to go back and write about. Damn good thing he did too because what would this world be without Ender's Game? I don't want to know.

Celia Cyanide said:

It worked for George Lucas. Heh.

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I was thinking the exact same thing.

If you've got enough for a good book 1, and you have the time and motivation - why not?

I found myself in a similar situation, my solution was to create a substantial prologue to set the scene.

If you have a lot of earlier content this may not be as appropriate though.

I've had this happen, more than once in fact. One of my books that feels a bit like a book 2 I'm on the fence about writing a prequel for. The other I will definitely write prequels for, because the stories are not that tightly linked narratively, some events just happen before others. The biggest link is the place they happen, so being able to write both before and after the first one I've written just gives me more options in the future for other stories.

I know what you mean about feeling like you are doing things backwards in writing. You just have to keep telling yourself that if it works for you, it's not wrong!