Posted: November 7, 2024

Previously, on . . .

In the comments section of last month's article on how series can go astray, someone asked how to set up a sequel for readers who haven't read the first book. How much recapping of the first book do you need to do to bring them up to speed?

The answer, almost always, is less than you think.

Ask yourself how much your sequel's plot answers questions you raised in the first book. Most of the time -- in most mystery series, for instance -- the plot of your sequel is completely independent of what came before. There may be aspects of your characters' lives that develop from book to book. But the stories themselves are self-contained, with the end of the book answering the questions asked at the beginning. Readers don't need a recap on the history of the friendship between Archie and Fritz in every new Nero Wolfe novel.

Or consider how an expert -- Sue Grafton -- does it.

The opening paragraph of A is for Alibi is all background on Kinsey Milhone -- her age, where she lives, why she likes where she lives, what she does. Less than a page later, we get a paragraph on her office and the nature of her business. This is a fair amount of background right off the bat, but it's easier to digest because we get it all in Kinsey's distinctive voice. ("I don't have pets. I don't have houseplants. I spend a lot of time on the road and I don't like leaving things behind.") The information is also mixed with the fact that she'd just killed someone for the first time, which catches readers' attention despite the information dump. And the background is over by the middle of page two, when we're into the main plot.

The opening pages of Y is for Yesterday (setting aside the first chapter, which is effectively a prologue) give us, if anything, even less information, even though there are 24 whole books of background behind them by this point. Same breezy voice ("I'm also single and cranky-minded, to hear some people tell it."). Same quick summary of Kinsey's living situation, her landlord, and the weather at the moment. Same shocking revelation -- that she was recently nearly killed and has since gotten a concealed carry permit and stopped jogging at night -- to heighten the tension. And within just a couple pages, we're in the middle of the current case.

The recapping question gets tricker when the plots of the two books are sort of intertwined -- where what happened in the previous book affects decisions made in the current one. Over the 32 books of Ann Perry's Pitt series, Pitt moves from being a police inspector to being knighted by Victoria. In between, he goes through various career ups and downs, and his feelings about recent changes affect how he reacts in the current crisis. When this happens, Perry inserts only as much information as readers need to understand what's going on. If you're in this situation, you can also work background in unobtrusively with interior monologue -- current events remind your characters of what came before. Or you can have a recurring character fill in a new character on the background.

All novels have a backstory. And all writers tend to put in more backstory than they actually need. It's an understandable temptation. After you've put in the work developing your settings and your characters' history, you want to showcase the work in your novel. This is especially true if you have an entire book -- or several -- full of backstory clogging your mind as you write.

Resist the temptation. Readers really get to know your characters not from learning where they've been but from seeing who they are now. Of course, who they are now grows out of where they've been. But as long as you have a solid grasp on their characters -- and that's one of the gifts of writing an earlier book about them -- you can bring them to life in front of your readers. And that's all they really need.