Last week I finished up the edits on the third book of my trilogy, and heaved a massive sigh of relief. If I hadn’t written the whole thing at once, without taking a break, I fear post-publication stress would have greatly interfered with the writing of the sequels. While I was shopping book one around to agents and publishers, I was hard at work on books two and three. By the time I landed an agent, the series was finished, and I never had to endure the pressure of Living Up to the First Volume.
With the constant influx of communication that our modern technology affords us, it is, in some ways, a wonder that any follow-up novels get written at all. There are blogs to write, reviews to read and emails to answer. Loop chats, Twitter, Facebook fan pages. And did I mention the pressure? As soon as the first handful of fans begins to clamor for the sequel, anxiety can easily trigger writer’s block. It’s a whole different ballgame, once you have readers. Those quiet hours spent in front of a computer with nothing to do but write are long gone. And yet…we authors began a story. And we better damn well finish it.
It is my belief that as soon as that first volume is written and sent off to the world, there is an unwritten promise of follow-through. A good story is not just a story – it’s a magical gateway that transports us to another world with characters that become a part of our lives for days or weeks. When there’s a jarring ending without closure, we’re left wallowing in agony until the next installment. So unless the book falls through the cracks and does not attract any sort of fan base whatsoever, an author has an obligation to his or her readers to give them the complete story in a reasonable timeframe. And it’s not just an obligation for the sake of the readers, but for the writers as well. If they take too long to deliver a sequel, they run the risk of losing their readers’ interest. Let’s face it: we are not a particularly patient generation.
So what’s a reasonable timeframe? I think anything much over a year, really, is pushing it. And if a writer is running behind, they should at least post a release date and stick to it. We’ve been waiting for A Dance of Dragons for how long? Okay, I looked. A Feast for Crows, book four in George R.R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire, was released in 2005. His last update regarding book five was in 2008, which was to say the book was not finished. Here we are 2011, and with not even a recent update and no release date, we’re left to conclude the book is still not finished. All I can say for Martin is, thank God he’s got the HBO adaptation of A Game of Thrones coming out in April, otherwise who even remembers who the hell these people are? Martin can’t even really blame writer’s block; he’s been very busy editing anthologies, writing unrelated novels and co-authoring yet even more unrelated work. But I do think he is suffering under the pressure? Oh yeah. He gets a gazillion emails applauding his work and demanding more. Who wouldn’t feel that pressure?
I think Patrick Rothfuss could tell us about pressure. When his debut novel The Name of the Wind took the world by storm in 2007, I don’t think he was mentally prepared for instant fame. But at least, unlike Martin, he has a release date for his sequel – which is exactly four years after the first one. And four years’ time is a lot to ask of your readers’ patience. Both Rothfuss and Martin could afford to take lessons from authors like Terry Goodkind, whose sequels were never much more than a year and a half in coming, and there were a few times when he delivered two of them within the same year.
Naturally, that begs another question: At what point are writers cranking them out too fast? Goodkind’s critics were fairly harsh toward the end of his Sword of Truth series. But I’ll leave that for another day.
At some point, writers need to acknowledge that fulfilling that promise of a complete story is more important than blogging, and even marketing their other novels. And anyway, there is no better way to market your first, than to release your second (or fifth, Mr. Martin). If they need to shut out the world, then so be it.
Readers too have an obligation, and that is to try to be on our best behavior. Yes, we’re impatient and angry that we have been deprived too long of our beloved characters. However, this does not give us permission to act like animals. Do you really think that posting on George R. R. Martin’s website, “Get off your fat ass and write,” is going to make him drop everything else he is doing and finish A Dance of Dragons? Let’s remind him instead how we’ve fallen in love with his characters, with his story, his rich prose. Let’s ask nicely. And then we need to back off, and not take up any more of his time.
After all, he’s got a story to finish.
Note from Overlord: Ashley wrote this at the end of February. Today G.R.R. Martin announced the release date of A Dance with Dragons. Brilliant timing Mr. Martin!
Title image by mlephotos.
