At first blush, the word sequel is understood by the general public as a follow-up work like a dozen Rocky movies, or a brace of books centered about a well-established theme and set of characters. However, to professional fiction writers, especially novelists, sequeling has nothing to do with a follow-up book. It is in fact a necessary process to create a cogent journey for the reader by linking events in the plot to the narrative and the characterization in the story-building process. That sounds as dry as snake skin, but good sequeling makes for great writing. Here are the specifics:

Whenever something occurs in a novel, there are three possible agents of reaction: The reader, the characters, and the narrator (or author, not always one and the same).

Leaving the reaction solely to the reader makes for flat writing. Sometimes we, as writers must allow the reader to stand alone and react to a particular fact or a sharp realization. This happens at the end of a chapter or section, where the reaction point serves as a cadence. Still, good writers generally do not let the reader hang in mid air, and will pick up the thread by sequeling in the subsequent section or chapter.

Letting characters react to events takes two forms—their immediate response and their sequeled response. First time writers sometimes neglect the sequeled response, trying to move the story along and spinning the journey out thinner and thinner until it evaporates. Like readers, who will need some space to consider events, characters need to review and attach meaning to events. This enriches their character and brings them into conflict or concord with other characters, and future events.

The writer needs to react to events as well. You might say nonsense. The event is created by the writer, wouldn’t the reaction be canned—destined to be already organized on an outline? But if that were the case, writers would not be participating in the process. They would be just . . . writing. Writing is just one ingredient in the production of a novel. Granted it is one of the more significant contributing factors, but it is not all one word after the other. It is the act of the writer joining his characters in an orgy of first draft creativity, followed, in due course, by revisions tempered with experience, pacing and structural shaping. So, sometimes the events happen outside the scope of the outline and the writer reacts initially like a stunned bride on her wedding night. It is necessary for the writer to sequel to assure the novel’s continuity and texture.

There are many ways to sequel, depending on the flow of the work, the characters in adjacent scenes and the weight of the events to review. For example, in Chapter Ten you have had a young soldier leave his regiment to save a mother and her child from a mortar attack. He succeeds, but is wounded, his regiment leaving him behind. Now the reader reacts to the plotline, the action, the noise and texture of the battlefield, the facial expressions of the mother and child; and the soldier’s heroism, not to mention—pain. Giving the reader anything less would be flat writing. Of course, tight and terse writing assures that all the pertinent story flow and every image is imparted in such a way as to engage the reader.

The characters in this chapter scenario also react. The soldier reacts to the child’s crying and the woman’s screaming; the whizzing bombs and the mortar fire. As the character emits visceral reactions to the world about him, a set of traits begin to emerge. These might be congruent or in contrast to the soldier’s previous chapter character development, but it all goes in the pot. The woman and child need quick start-up character impressions. I have learned that the more traits stirred into the character pot, the characters become the story tellers, including their own dialogue. Of course, in revision I might chastise them for such presumption, but unless this occurs, there is no validity to the novel—by definition. So, as I write, and my characters throw me those curves, I also react and pen things that had never appeared (nor should they have) on any outline or blueprint for the work.

So, we have our scene and initial reactions from three different quarters. Now, the next chapter should move us to another set of events. Logic says as much, but what does logic have to do with writing a novel’s draft. The journey for all parties needs to be driven indelibly into the imagination. Therefore, we sequel.

The soldier is in pain, but is surviving. He however is melancholy because he has left his comrades in arms. The woman and the child do not speak English. So here lies the soldier in a dirt hut, in the mountains and, what does it mean? To him? To us? To me? Sequeling carries that weight. The soldier recalls the battle, recalls the steps he took, feels the pain again, reviews his motivation for saving the woman and her child. He might remember his mother, or his younger baby brother. In other words, he must ask the BIG questions. Why did I do it? Where will it lead me? How will I get home? All this is done from the soldier’s point of view. In sequeling, the writer reviews the work’s direction, both backward and forward. Are there any problems with that direction? Do I go forward, or do I make adjustments backward? Are there alternatives that would have made better sense? If logic gaps persist, then the writer needs to either tighten the details or hang a lantern on it—that it, bring it to the reader’s attention and recognize your fallibility. That goes far to maintain the almighty credibility factor.

    The act of sequeling provides the reader with food for thought. It highlights global themes and key words that your novel harvests like moss on a rock. It ensures that the tracks are laid for where you want to take the reader. It is a subtle art. You bang the drum, but with care.

There are several approaches that can be used, depending on the voice you are using in your work. First person is the easiest, because you only have one point of view; however, sequeling in first person can become grating if it’s extended. Fortunately, most creative works are in third person limited, which gives the writer a choice of view points for any given chapter. If the pacing must be rapid, the writer as narrator can weigh in with a review of events to begin the chapter. If the pacing is slower, but intense, the main character’s point of view is the one to seek. In most cases a balance between that character’s voice and the author can be maintained allowing for extended sequeling without tiring the reader. But there are other ways.

Character voiced sequeling, hard to control, but very effective can move the action along while revealing layers of character reaction to past events. This is engineered in dialogue and third person point of view. The dialogue holds some review and new materials. The point of view character sequels on the past events as spun from the dialogue. The character sequels, and then rejoins the action with new dialogue; and thus it goes.

One last technique should be mentioned. It is one to be used with care, but works on several levels. This is using third person omniscient mode and taking an overview of events by removing the speaker from the reader’s knowledge base. Now hold on. What’s that? Well, it means you want to reset things and begin really fresh, so you pull up high and grind out in a different voice the events in a well-crafted summary, ignoring the fact that the reader already knows these events. However, the sequeling comes into play because the summary words reflect a different take on the events. This comes in handy with character internal dialogue as well, when the character reviews their own situation (usually in frustration), and then restates it in a snappy, new (even colloquial) way, thus gaining a new set of reactions.

In summary, when spinning out your creative tales in a professional and engaging way, do not forget to have reactions to events, and a review of what those events mean to those who take the journey. This is called sequeling, and as for the other use of the word, may all your novels have babies, but never call them sequels

Edward C. Patterson
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