ERIC BEETNER Guest Blogger!

As you know, I like to have a guest come by every once in a while.

My friend, Eric Beetner, is a multi-talented dude. Not only is he a great writer (check out The Devil Doesn’t Want Me for a great hitman story! I’m about 70% of the way through and LOVING it), but he has his day job in editing and film (I’ll let him fill you in on that, if he wants to), is a musician (which makes me especially jealous, because I love music and suck at it), and a killer graphic artist.

Want proof on the graphic artist part? Well, he designed the covers for Blood on Blood, Lovely, Dark, and Deep, and At This Point in My Life. He’s working on the cover for the Blood on Blood sequel, called Queen of  Diamonds.

Eric has written a couple of novels that center around boxing, too, and they’re on my TBR list.

Take a little time and get to know him. He’s a cool guy. Trust me.

TO SEQUEL OR NOT TO SEQUEL?

by Eric Beetner

As I close in on the final edits of my latest book, I’m at that point where I’ve been living with the story long enough for every doubt I can conjure to creep through the cracks and pester me into self doubt. The biggest question the book keeps asking me – why did you need to write this at all? Didn’t you already write this book?

You see, it’s a sequel. The continuing story of what happens after my novel The Devil Doesn’t Want Me leaves off.

I’m conflicted about sequels. Well, not sequels so much as series. I come from a movie background where an ongoing series is rarely a good thing, Bond not withstanding. When was the last time the 5th movie in a franchise held even a fifth of the wonder and excitement of the first? My daughter is in a Star Wars phase and I recently had to cave in and let her watch the new movies. Episode 1, 2 & 3, y’know, the ones that were made later but take place first and are generally awful and tore something out of the hearts of first generation Star Wars fans? Yeah, those.

When I read Ridley Scott is doing a sequel to Blade Runner I think I screamed out to the heavens, “Nooooo!” like a bad soap opera actor.

I don’t read many series. I certainly don’t read long series. I know I’m missing out. People all the time tell me I need to read the Jack Reacher books, The Joe Pike and Elvis Cole books, the Harry Bosch books. No one is telling me to read them, but there are the Stephanie Plum books, the Alex Cross books, the V.I. Warshawski books as well.
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Nope, I skip them all. I prefer standalones. I like a crime story where anyone can die at any time. It sucks the life out of a story if I know the protagonist is in no real danger because he or she has to live to see the pages of the 15th, 19th, how-high-can-you count installment of the series.

So what the hell am I doing writing a sequel?

It can be done. I don’t mind the idea of continuing with characters we like. Every now and then you get a Godfather 2. Heck, even The Empire Strikes Back is probably a better movie than Star Wars.

I’ve written sequels before. My novel One Too Many Blows To The Head (co-written with JB Kohl) was written as a standalone, but then a new story popped up and we went ahead and wrote Borrowed Trouble.

My Fightcard novella Split Decision was received well and was so much fun to write that when I was offered an open invitation to write a sequel, I jumped on it and wrote A Mouth Full Of Blood.

Both stopped there. Truthfully, if the public demand was such that it made it worth my time to write more of either, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’m starting to see the light, from a writer’s point of view anyway. Characters you already know are easy to slip back into their voice. You can build on an established history for a character. You can respond to what readers already like and didn’t like about a book.

I know I could never do it for ten, twenty, thirty novels. A trilogy is good to me. Maybe five, tops.

But then I’ve been getting in on the ground floor of a few series and I’m enjoying it. Maybe that’s the trick. For me, at least. Start with these people, become invested, and then follow them anywhere. Something like, the River City series for example. Or Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes On The Rangeseries. Charlie Huston’s Joe PItt series. Joe Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard.

I guess the secret to all those is great writing. Keeping it fresh. Maintaining characters, but creating something new each time out. To the writers of ongoing series, Frank Zafiro included, more power to you. I’m jealous. I wish I could do it. I’m working on it.

To the readers of ongoing series, I understand now. The more I dig into series that are a little longer, so long as I got there on the ground floor, the more I see the appeal of returning to characters you like and rolling along on another adventure.

For my new book, good news is I like what I’ve read back. Often times I’ve forgotten huge chunks by the time I reach the end so I can read it fairly objectively because it’s new to me. I think this one is going to be good.

Fan of The Devil Doesn’t Want Me will be pleased. Will it go on from here? I have no idea. I’ll happily change my tune and deny I ever had a thing against series when I’m on book seven and loving it.

I’ll continue to write standalones, but I’ll enjoy returning to familiar voices more and more.