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Episode Transcript 

Rekka (00:00):This is We Make Books, a podcast about writing publishing and everything in between. Rekka is a published Science Fiction and Fantasy author, and Kaelyn is a professional genre fiction editor. Together, they'll tackle the things you never knew you never knew about getting a book from concept to finished product, with explanations, examples, and a lot of laughter. Get your moleskin notebook ready. It's time for We Make Books.

Kaelyn (00:26):Y'know, it's funny because in movie trilogies, I always think it's the third movie that kind of slumps.

Rekka (00:33):Okay. So maybe this is a poorly conceived episode. I don't know. Um, but the impression I have from the person asking us the topic... They did say "writing Book Two in a series of three or more." Assuming that you come out of the gate strong on Book One, you are heading toward some final book, and we'll assume trilogy for the purpose of this conversation.

Kaelyn (01:01):Yeah, I was going to say, because writing Book Two in a planned trilogy is very different than writing Book Two in a, "Oh, we'll see how this goes."

Rekka (01:08):Exactly. Uh, which is my experience of writing Book Twos, both times, even though they're now both trilogies. But anyway, so assuming that it's going to end in the following book, how do you tell a chunk of your story, keep the reader interested by—one supposes that you are ramping up action, and tension and danger and all these? Oop. I've already said something wrong.

Kaelyn (01:40):No, no. I was going to say, I understand the question that they're trying to ask now and whatever they're trying to write should probably be a duology.

Rekka (01:49):Oh no! Okay. That's a separate episode. We already figured that out before we started recording. Assuming that we are going to end this in the following book.

Kaelyn (02:00):Well, that's fine. If we, if we start recording and we talk about this, I can explain what my thinking—

Rekka (02:05):Oh, no, we're recording, and this is the episode now. Cause I phrased it very well and I felt very eloquent. So now we're going to go with it.

Kaelyn (02:10):Oh goodness. Okay. Yeah. So, um, you know, we're talking about second books in trilogies and um, I think that for a lot of authors, this is going to be either the easiest thing they ever write or the hardest thing they ever write. It really depends on how, how your story's going. So if you're asking this question, "I feel like I'm trying to come up with stuff to fill the time in between the beginning and end of my story."

Rekka (02:34):Okay. That's one way to interpret it. I have a second interpretation, but let's talk about that one first.

Kaelyn (02:38):Well, wait, I want to hear your interpretation.

Rekka (02:39):No no no. No, we're gonna go with that.

Kaelyn (02:43):Okay. Um, there there's two reasons writing the second book in a trilogy can be, um, very difficult. One is that what I just said. You're, you feel like you're just trying to come up with, you know, stuff to happen so that you can get to the end of it. And that's what I was— the point I was making that, if that's the case, maybe you shouldn't be writing a trilogy. Maybe you should be writing a duology. Your story is your story. Um, unless you have a contract for a trilogy and they're like, you must generate this. And by the way, I would hope that before you signed that contract, you had discussed, um...

Rekka (03:15):Where the trilogy was going.

Kaelyn (03:18):Yeah, some outlines and some, uh, some story points there. Um, the other reason is you have a beginning and you have an