Breaking the Silence has been out for a month now, and already people are asking for a sequel. Okay, it hasn’t been that many people (yet). And of course Breaking the Silence is Book 1 in a planned trilogy and is advertised as such, so readers already sort of know there will be a sequel. And Book 2 already has a title (Taming the Beast) AND a first draft (which I wrote about here), so I’m not actually worried about being able to provide a sequel. But there is something about hearing that people want that sequel that makes the pressure that much greater. This bears reflection.

Book 2 is so much harder to write?

I recently finished the second book in what is becoming one of my favorite cozy fantasy series, Legends and Lattes, and in the author’s note at the end of Book 2, Bookshops and Bonedust, the author Travis Baldree conveyed what I’m feeling perfectly. He wrote that when he got the deal from Tor to republish Legends and Lattes, he was required to write a sequel. At the time, he thought he knew what that sequel was, but he tried to write it and it turned out to be the wrong idea. He went through starting and setting aside several “wrong ideas” before settling on the charming prequel that turned out to be a perfect companion to the original novel.

I similarly started and set aside several iterations of Taming the Beast before finishing a draft to completion, and that was before the first book had ventured beyond my closest circle of beta readers! Now that I have actual readers — actual middle school readers in my target audience — looking forward to sequel, I find myself second-guessing the draft (and the plan for Book 3, but let’s not worry about that just yet). Is it the right story after all? Does it still speak to the same audience? Are the recurring characters still just as beloved as they were in the first book? Do the new characters fit in? Are they developed enough? Will the seventh-grade girl who wrote a rave review for her summer reading like it???

These questions, these worries, this level of utter imposter syndrome never bothered me before. Certainly not with a first novel. And not even as I prepared Breaking the Silence in the aftermath of my first self-published novel Quest for the Historical Arthur. These are not regular writing worries. These are not Book 1 problems. They are specific to the unique situation of writing a second book in a series. (And possibly a third, but again, we’re not there yet.)

How To Approach That Sequel

The first thing I’m doing, honestly, is enjoying the feedback. It’s nice that people want a sequel. And there will be a sequel.

The second thing I’ll need to do is return to that shiny first draft I wrote last fall. For followers who subscribe to this blog as a newsletter, consider this your update: I’m blocking off the months of October and November this year to revise my first draft. If that goes well, I can send it out to beta readers and then revise it for my editor at Tree Shadow Press within the 2027 calendar year. Optimistic? Sure, but definitely doable.

What if I return to the draft this fall and find out it’s not that great and needs to be entirely rewritten? Or what if I find out, like I have several times in the past, that it isn’t the right story to succeed Breaking the Silence at all? I was pretty happy with the first draft, so I don’t think it will turn out to be completely wrong, but I have a few ideas for how I can prevent myself from throwing out that entire first draft and give my readers a satisfying followup to Breaking the Silence.

1. I’m going to start by rereading Breaking the Silence, writing down the main themes, most prominent characteristics of the main characters, and things about it I generally love. Then, when I read the first draft of Taming the Beast, I can make note of places where those things line up and where they don’t, and if they don’t line up I can make a note to bring all that magic from Breaking the Silence into the sequel.
2. I’m going to use the “deadline” to my advantage. I could spend forever working on a sequel, to the point of my fans believing that sequel will never come out *cough*PatrickRothfuss*cough* or I could take my time the way I did with the first book and come out with book 2 in 3-4 years, but then I would have to find a whole new readership. The middle schoolers who like my book now will be way too old for Stephen if I wait too long. Deadlines can be inspiring. Sometimes an artificial deadline can put just the right amount of pressure not to be stressful, but to keep me on task.
3. Finally, I’m going to remember that Taming the Beast is a different story, and it can be good on its own. If it is good, I’m not going to beat myself up over it not being perfect, or even not being as good as Breaking the Silence. And I am definitely (I say this here now, on the blog, to hold myself accountable later) not going to obsess over trying to make it pair perfectly with the first book.

In the meantime, though, I’m going to enjoy the release of Breaking the Silence while I get ready for the start of the school year!

What I’m Writing

All summer I have been hard at work finishing my academic monograph God in the Flesh: Materiality and Christology in Late Antique Gaul, which is officially under contract with Fortress Press. I recently rewrote the introduction and am working on revising the body chapters before writing a conclusion. When the whole thing is revised and ready to submit, it will go out for peer review. At that point I’ll be able to take a little break from academic writing and return to that sequel…

What I’m Reading

I got a Kobo ereader at the beginning of the summer, and since then my fiction reading has gone way up! Part of that is summer vacation — I just have more time to read for fun in the summers than I do during the school year — but the other part is that the ereader has enabled me to read in more places. It used to be I would read for 15-20 minutes in bed before going to sleep, and I still do that, but now when I have to go places where I sit for a long time (doctor’s appointment, kids’ play rehearsal or saxophone lesson), instead of scrolling my phone, I read an actual book, and it’s wonderful.

Some highlights from the summer: Bookshops and Bonedust, the prequel to Legends and Lattes that I discussed above; Hekate by Nikita Gill, which was suggested to me by Kobo after the Odyssey movie came out. (Honest, full disclosure: I have a PhD in Classics, and somehow I made it through that whole thing without ever having become interested in Greek mythology. I was never interested in Greek mythology. Until I started playing Hades II, also this summer. That game is amazing, and now, for the first time in life, this “rogue classicist” likes Greek myth. All because of Hekate, in both the game and the book!); and most recently, the third book in the Detective Honeywell mystery series by Annette Dashofy that’s set in my hometown. I recommend them all!

Statement on Generative AI: I never use it. Never have, never will. Periodt.