Many science fiction and fantasy writers have created entire worlds or even universes in which their characters tell their stories. The list is quite long–J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth has become so ingrained in the fantasy consciousness that it’s hard to imagine a time in fantasy literature where there weren’t elves, hobbits, and orcs. More recently, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter universe took the world by storm with its rich history and detail. In science fiction, creations like Star Wars and Star Trek have endured for decades and show no signs of fading away.
Less well-known series by countless writers that span multiple books flourish in all sub-genres of science fiction, both in print and on the silver and small screens. The idea of a consistent universe is not at all a new one.
But it’s new to me.
Beltrunner II: Aftermath is my first true sequel. While it’s true I’ve written a trilogy (The Moth series) that was always a very long story told in three books. In the Moth series, I had the entire sweep of the story plotted out from beginning to end, so breaking it up into three novels was more just an organizational tool than anything else. Aftermath was written several years after Beltrunner was done–more importantly, I felt Beltrunner was done done. When I finished it, I very much thought Collier’s story (and Sancho’s, for that matter) had been told, and I started working a completely unrelated novel (Silent Manifest, which was published a few years ago).
When I was convinced to revisit the Beltrunner story, it took me a while to come up with a new story. I managed to do so, and wrote Aftermath. What became apparent rather quickly, though, was that Aftermath had some places where it was out of alignment with facts and lore established in Beltrunner. There were inconsistencies and areas where things didn’t seem to line up properly. My first task in this editing process, then, was to reexamine Beltrunner and fully understand the lore I myself had created so I could bring Aftermath into agreement with it.
You may be thinking, “how can you have forgotten your own lore?” Well, it’s easy. Because I moved on. I wrote a different book, and indeed am over 60,000 words into a draft of yet another unrelated one. Just because I wrote the bloody thing doesn’t mean I actually remember all the details.
Now that I am looking at Beltrunner, I am amazed at just how many throwaway lines I have in it that need to be codified into some kind of Beltrunner Bible. In an effort to make the story rich and give the feeling of a fully realized world (or universe), I made several off-the-cuff comments about this or that which now I have to align with Aftermath. Certainly, not everything needs to be revisited, but if I described an item as having such-and-such dimensions, I have to stick with those dimensions in the second book. Little details of lore end up mattering. Looking back, if I had known Beltrunner was going to have a sequel (and if my publisher has his way, an entire series) I would have been more careful in crafting the world.
It’s as if I’m looking at some other writer (me, but a past version of myself) and trying to write some fanfiction while keeping the lore intact. I even had a daydream about building scale models of the spaceship my main character uses, Dulcinea, so I can more accurately describe it. I could design a wiki for the Beltrunner universe so I can keep everything straight. I might need a clothesline slung in my study so I can clip note cards in a timeline to keep things in order.
It’s interesting work, no doubt, but I do find myself cursing my slightly younger self for being so haphazard with lore.
What’s worse is that even Aftermath was written as if THAT was the end of the story, and already my publisher wants a third one. So I might have to do this all over again.
I suppose a wiser man would have learned from this, but hey…I’m just beginning to figure out how to do this “writing” thing.
Be seeing you!
Less well-known series by countless writers that span multiple books flourish in all sub-genres of science fiction, both in print and on the silver and small screens. The idea of a consistent universe is not at all a new one.
But it’s new to me.
Beltrunner II: Aftermath is my first true sequel. While it’s true I’ve written a trilogy (The Moth series) that was always a very long story told in three books. In the Moth series, I had the entire sweep of the story plotted out from beginning to end, so breaking it up into three novels was more just an organizational tool than anything else. Aftermath was written several years after Beltrunner was done–more importantly, I felt Beltrunner was done done. When I finished it, I very much thought Collier’s story (and Sancho’s, for that matter) had been told, and I started working a completely unrelated novel (Silent Manifest, which was published a few years ago).
When I was convinced to revisit the Beltrunner story, it took me a while to come up with a new story. I managed to do so, and wrote Aftermath. What became apparent rather quickly, though, was that Aftermath had some places where it was out of alignment with facts and lore established in Beltrunner. There were inconsistencies and areas where things didn’t seem to line up properly. My first task in this editing process, then, was to reexamine Beltrunner and fully understand the lore I myself had created so I could bring Aftermath into agreement with it.
You may be thinking, “how can you have forgotten your own lore?” Well, it’s easy. Because I moved on. I wrote a different book, and indeed am over 60,000 words into a draft of yet another unrelated one. Just because I wrote the bloody thing doesn’t mean I actually remember all the details.
Now that I am looking at Beltrunner, I am amazed at just how many throwaway lines I have in it that need to be codified into some kind of Beltrunner Bible. In an effort to make the story rich and give the feeling of a fully realized world (or universe), I made several off-the-cuff comments about this or that which now I have to align with Aftermath. Certainly, not everything needs to be revisited, but if I described an item as having such-and-such dimensions, I have to stick with those dimensions in the second book. Little details of lore end up mattering. Looking back, if I had known Beltrunner was going to have a sequel (and if my publisher has his way, an entire series) I would have been more careful in crafting the world.
It’s as if I’m looking at some other writer (me, but a past version of myself) and trying to write some fanfiction while keeping the lore intact. I even had a daydream about building scale models of the spaceship my main character uses, Dulcinea, so I can more accurately describe it. I could design a wiki for the Beltrunner universe so I can keep everything straight. I might need a clothesline slung in my study so I can clip note cards in a timeline to keep things in order.
It’s interesting work, no doubt, but I do find myself cursing my slightly younger self for being so haphazard with lore.
What’s worse is that even Aftermath was written as if THAT was the end of the story, and already my publisher wants a third one. So I might have to do this all over again.
I suppose a wiser man would have learned from this, but hey…I’m just beginning to figure out how to do this “writing” thing.
Be seeing you!
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