Minor Characters Bubbling in the Pot.

What do you mean?

I'd say it's a sequel of a sort. Series may be more apt. Same world? Original characters make any kind of appearance?

I'm planning on expanding the romance sub-plot between a couple of minor characters in my current WIP. The key to it is making it relevant. Both of the minor characters in the first book I wrote had room to go with the subplot. Now they are getting additional threads that tie them in with the main story, making both of the more important overall.

Check out Suzanne Brockman. She's done it a lot.

I haven't done it but my serials have LOTS of potential to do such things. One wonders, what were these lesser characters doing while we weren't watching...? I have written short stories related to my longer stories, utilizing backstories of the characters involved. I think it'd be fun to write a completely different story based on a subplot with minor characters from the main story, though I haven't the time to do it what with the main story to focus on.

I think it sounds like an intriguing idea, though, given that the subplot and minor characters used are interesting enough in their own right to make up another story.

This sort of series also happens pretty frequently in paranormal romance, where the hero/heroine dynamic changes with each subsequent book.

It also doesn't necessarily have to be a series for characters to cross from one novel to another. Stephen King does this a lot, and I've seen character-share in Megan Hart's novels.

suzanne brockmann, marlis melton, cherry adair, more authors than i can remember. it's an extremely common practice in romance. Rowbotham wrote a series of mysteries doing that. I'm sure there are many more authors than just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Only one little thing. I just read your explanation again and i'm not sure you want to just rewrite the subplot. not sure any reader is going to watn to read the same thing again. better to come up with a different plot for the next book, using the subplot characters. Otherwise you're going to have a series of books all telling the same story and that I don't think a reader is going to want to pay more than once for.

OSC did it in 'Ender's Game' and 'Ender's Shadow'. Ender's Game is about Ender's past and being sent into space to train to fight aliens (I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I'll stop there). Ender's Shadow is about Bean, a very minor character from Ender's Game. It covers his past and how he is sent into space to train to fight aliens. The main bits of both books take place during the same time period. Insignificant-seeming stuff that Bean does in Ender's Game turns out to be very important and interesting to plot in Ender's Shadow. The books are really good and a quick read.

Anne Rice

It CAN be a sequel, but it doesn't have to be. Perfect example, in my opinion, is Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" as a follow-up to "American Gods." "Anansi Boys" can be considered a sequel, because it uses minor characters from "American Gods," but it's really a completely stand-alone novel. So, the call is yours!

This is quite common in romance series. First book is characters A and B, second book might be A's sister or B's best friend or even the villain, or any two of these paired together. Often it is mentioned with passing amusement in book one that the second pair of characters reacted strongly to each other when they first met, or that one is going to be a matchmaker's next 'victim'. Third book could then be another sibling, a widowed parent, a cousin, another friend, or a child of the first pair...

*Pudge* said:

Is it a sequel if you use a sub plot with minor characters for the next WIP.

Has any one done this?

Click to expand...

Ista, the MC of Lois McMaster Bujold's terrific Hugo- and Nebula-winning Paladin of Souls, was a minor character in her earlier (also terrific) The Curse of Chalion.

Dale

Orson Scott Card did this. Ender's game was his first novel in the series. It talked about a boy in a military school whose name was Andrew. He wrote several subsequent books following different children at the school. Some of them followed the same events from a different child's perspective and then followed those children into adulthood.

I can't help, I'm lost... I'm sorry

*Pudge* said:

Is it a sequel if you use a sub plot with minor characters for the next WIP.

Has any one done this?

Click to expand...

you mean like--a spin-off?

Cheers=Frasier? Like that? I certainly see no reason why not. Many of my stories are essentially "spin-offs" of one major plot through a childhood world my brothers and I had created. Facets of the whole.

Am I off-base with what you're saying?

EDIT: I was going to add Friends=Joey but...yuck, no thank you.

**Personal opinion alert**

sequel - stand-alone story that has in common with the previous stand-alone a more-encompasing, overarching plot or story arc.

series - stand-alone stories that use the same characters, but put in different situations - typically without an overarching plot, but held with some other common bond (like occupation or activity of the MC, for example a series of stories with the same professional or amateur sleuth). Characterization is carried through, and the history of past stories may be important.


From the description here, I don't think picking off characters from a subplot and writing a full story about them makes the story either of the above. It's just picking off familiar characters and writing a unique story that has some relationship with the first story. Of course, it depends on how close the new story follows the subplot of the original story. Is it an outgrowth? If it is an elaboration, it couldn't be a sequel if it was either happening simultaneously with the original story, or before it (if the elaboration of the subplot went back in time relative to the original story). In other words, the temporal relationship between the two stories is important.

For this to be considered a series, there should be some common MCs, and I don't see where secondary characters fit that bill. My current WIP uses characters from Agnes Hahn and Imola, but I do not consider it either a sequel or part of a series because it is a totally unrelated story, even though there are references to the original two stories.