Sequels

Who'd've thought it, eh? (For longer-standing library members, Rick Marlowe's sequel-refusal policy is deeply embedded in our psyches, though, as he says himself, his any-story-at-all-refusal leaves a sad gap on our shelves, not that I'm in any position to judge).

It's only natural, when you read a story whose characters and setting really grab you, to want more of the same. And it's tempting for the author, when several commenters cry "Encore!", to accede to that request.

njrick/Marlowe's stance can be seen as both an honourable one - the artist resisting the lure of easy praise - and as a pragmatic one: sequels usually fail to attain the standard of the original, and artists have pride, you know.

I've had my share of sequel-appeals, and mostly passed up the opportunities, but I have sometimes enjoyed writing what you might call a 'spin-off' - a story revisiting familiar characters in a new time or place.

What a timely topic!

Before I get to the sequel I'm looking for, thought I'd bring everyone up to speed. Very recently we "discovered" the original German version of the Judicial Corporal Punishment classic, "Nell in Bridewell".

To me Nell is far, far above anything in this genre. While there is not a great deal of actual corporal punishment in Nell, there is endless discussion about it weaved throughout the tale.

Anyhow, the plot thickens! We have discovered that Nell had a sequel that was never translated into English called "Nell's Farewell". We would just love to get our hands on it to see what happens to Nell. That is, is she given a formal house of correction "Farewell" or is this simply a farewell before she lives happily ever after? A third option is that the English version already includes the story line contained in the sequel.

In short, until we get our hands on the 1906 German sequel, we just won't know.

Turns out that German book is available online in several US Universities:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/lenchens-abschied-nachtrag-zu-lenchen-im-zuchthaus/ocl c/771710069&referer=brief_results

Problem is you must be enrolled in order to access their library systems. Hopefully one of our members will have success in obtaining this classic. Next step in the process would be to use Google translate plus the help of our German speaking members to create an English version of this wonderful tale.

Regards,
Tired

Unlike Rick, I have occasionally written a geniune sequel as opposed to a series or serial or a combination of the two. Normally this occurs when I wonder what happened next. An example might be 'Doyle' and 'Inspector Doyle and the strange case of the handcuffed woman', though to be fair, leaving a bit of a cliffhanger does help.
Whilst flattering, it can be a little depressing when my reader asks for a sequel immediately after reading a story which was never planned to be more than that. Don't they know how long it takes to write this rubbish? Usually when I have put a single story to bed, I think it is finished.

Most of my stories, except when I write something designed as a multi-part, are complete in themselves and I can't think of any extension. There's a couple of my characters. Scatty Sarah and Hector Protective The Spanking Detective who can have separate adventures based on their character/profession.

@mobile_carrot

Those are great examples of "series" vs "serials" or "sequels."

@opb
I hope that nothing I said implied disparagement of authors who choose to do sequels, because none was intended. There icertainly is nothing wrong with writing sequels. I just choose not to (like Neil/mobile_carrot).

Absolutely understood Rick. I think that quite often a sequel lacks the creative spark which started the original. It gets a bit worse when trying to write a story which comes before the first chronologically, sometimes called a prequel. They attempt to explain and develop the world of the main story, but sometimes end up being a series of tying up of ends because the author's hands are tied a bit by that first story, and there's the risk of plot errors which one's reader will spot.

It's a subtle topic, isn't it? Like Rick, I claim that I don't write sequels as I consider my stories whole and complete, and feel that what readers often wonder about, is what is best left to their imagination. But on three occasions I have come pretty close, and the only thing that saves my honor is that in one case the sequel turned into a serial in Nicks's terminology, and in the other two cases they became series (at least that's what I think they became!). But I'm not quite sure about this defense as in all three cases the original story was intended as a stand-alone story, and another definition of sequel might be that it is an unplanned follow-up. Anyway, I USUALLY don't write sequels!

I sometimes like to leave the continuation of stand-alone stories to the imagination of the reader, but on at least two occasions I have been tempted into writing a sequel. You cannot have a serial with only two parts, so I asked F&F to class the two parts as a linked series. But then I was tempted to write a third part and ... well, you can probably see where this is going - I ended up writing a serial misclassified as a series. I must be a librarian's nightmare. Despite her imperturbable patience, I suspect I must on occasions have Flopsy reaching for her hairbrush. Apologies.

The series has been doing its best to make up for that ever since, though.

If the number of comments is a guideline as to how well a story was received, then the sequel of at least one of my stories was more popular than part one. It actually received twice as many comments and I personally also like it more. It is also encouraging when the stat’s show that a reader has gone on to read the second part of a story.