How to plan your next novel

This is the first of a four part series I’m sharing this week, exploring how to plan a sequel.

I’m planning to take July and August out to write the sequel to Fallen Warriors. I’ve never written a sequel before and have to admit, I’m quite nervous. For Fallen Warriors I had a very clear idea of the ending I wanted. In theory, as I was writing the novel, all I had to do was direct the characters towards that ending.

Of course it wasn’t as easy as that, and with eight main characters and several more minor characters, I struggled to keep track of their stories. The complexity of the plots was one of the main reasons it took me almost ten years to write.

My writing style is probably closer to what they call “pantser” than “plotter”, though I did write out plots for all of my characters… However, I struggled to believe those individual plots would work until I finally took everything I’d written up to then, started at the beginning and wove them all together. It was only then that I started to see that it did all actually fit together.

I don’t want to leave readers waiting ten years for a sequel so am planning to kick start the process this summer, writing a first draft and also putting some work towards the third novel in what will eventually be a trilogy. I’m expecting that this will allow me to make the plot more consistent across the three books as when I’m editing book two, I’ll already have a good idea of what happens in book three.

But, because I’m trying to be more sensible about how much I write daily for this blog, and because I’m planning to spread this post out over several days, allow me to say…

To be continued!