At Kill Zone Blog, a post by Sue Coletta: Should you write a prequel?
Upside of Prequels
Character depth: Write a prequel to show the origin story of a beloved character or cast to explain their motivation and how they became who they are in the original series.
World-building: Write a prequel to provide a deeper look into the world before the main events i.e., history, politics, culture, etc.
Fresh perspectives: Write a prequel to showcase lesser-known characters and their perspectives.
Well, yes, I would say that pretty well covers some of the big reasons to write prequels. There’s another, I suppose:
Author would enjoy writing it: Write a prequel because you’d just like to write it. Sue Coletta doesn’t mention author enjoyment at all, but honestly, this seems like a perfectly adequate reason. I’m thinking of Marag, of course. Why did I write that? Because someone here (I don’t remember who, sorry!) suggested it and I thought You know, that might be fun. Then a couple of scenes occurred to me. Then I wrote the first chapter, and there you go, a prequel appeared. I didn’t do it in order to showcase secondary characters. That was a result of doing it, not part of why I decided to do it.
What does Sue point to as potential problems with writing a prequel?
Downside of Prequels
Unnecessary recap: Don’t write a prequel to rehash plot points from one of the original novels or the series as a whole.
Disappointing character portrayals: Don’t write a prequel to capture the essence of an established character or cast, or you’ll risk undoing all the characterization in the series.
Quality: If you don’t believe the prequel can live up to the high standards of the series, write something else.
Does anybody ever write a prequel that covers the same plot points as one of the prior novels? Maybe they do, from a different point of view. I feel like I’ve seen that, though I can’t think of any examples offhand. I’m not sure about whether I think that’s a bad idea. I think it could be neat, at long as it’s not the villain’s pov. Which could also be neat, I guess, for someone who isn’t me and doesn’t detest villain points of view as much as I do. Antagonists are fine, though. I might enjoy seeing the same events if they looked radically different. I’m SURE I’ve heard of or read something that did that, but I just don’t remember what it was.
Disappointing character portrayals, really? You hardly need to say this. Obviously it’s always bad to do disappointing character portrayal, in a prequel or anywhere else. I don’t see why attempting to capture the essence of an established character is bad, unless you fail to capture the essence of the character. I do see why attempting to do this is bad if you fail, but it’s just as bad if the story is a sequel as it would be in a prequel. Maybe worse.
As for quality, obviously. There’s no need to say that either. I think Sue was trying too hard to get three points in order to match the three upsides.
What are some prequels I’ve particularly liked? Well, The Magician’s Nephew is a prequel novel, so that’s one. My goodness, what is up with this new cover?
What is the publisher thinking? That’s a completely ridiculous cover for this story.
Not a lot of others are occurring to me. Oh, no, I can think of one other — Golden Dream is basically a prequel novel for Little Fuzzy, even though it was written by Ardath Mayhar instead of H Beam Piper. Golden Dream does also overlap in time with the other Fuzzy books. Of course some of the Fuzzy books got Michael Whelan covers, which means they’re some of my all-time favorite novel covers. Little Fuzzy is free at least at the moment for the Kindle version, but none of the versions currently offered have the wonderful Michael Whelan cover, so honestly, I’d be looking for a used copy of the original paperback if I didn’t already have it.
Anyway, at some point, not only do I plan to go ON with the No Foreign Sky story, I also do plan to go BACK as well. I’ve had a prequel in mind from the beginning — basically similar to Little Fuzzy, of course, and similar to Golden Dream as well, except the enormously cute little species that is dying out are humans, of course, and the civilization that rescues the descendants of the long-lost human colonists are the turun. Why do I plan to write it? Basically for Reason Four: Author Enjoyment. It takes place so far in the past that there’s no character overlap, obviously. Worldbuilding, yes.
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When you mentioned books that cover the same story from different points of view, I immediately thought of Mary Stolz’s Barkham Street books: A Dog on Barkham Street and The Bully of Barkham Street. I haven’t read them in decades, and I’d be a little afraid to re-read them in case the Suck Fairy had visited. However, I remember thinking this was the coolest idea ever when I was a kid. Bully does tell the story from the “villain’s” POV, but since the villain is a grade-school boy who (very unsurprising spoiler) learns better in the end, I don’t think this would be a problem for most people.
The Teen and I kicked the question of prequels around over breakfast. Considered the multiple types of prequel: historical backstory; the parent’s generation; younger iterations of present day cast – That’s all we came up with and I’m pretty sure there are more.
While we had trouble coming up with examples – of any type – we agreed that historical type would probably not be problematic, as long as the author kept track of established world building. JRRT’s Silmarillion stuff may count. The Magician’s Nephew certainly does.
Parent’s generation… well, I find the Star Wars prequels unwatchable, for one example. And they didn’t pay attention to the world building, especially about the Jedi, dropped in the original trilogy.
But it could work. LMB manages, but I don’t have the impression they were written as prequels, which I think matters. Shards and Barraryar were published later but they were reworked versions of the first book she wrote.
And the younger iteration of present day characters where the only example either of us could come up with is one where I put it down and said “well… The author may have needed to know all this, but she didn’t need to publish it.” And she broke the established facts of the books set later. AUthor: Michelle WEst, the prequels were the ones dealing with young Jewel while she was on the streets. I forgot the titles very quickly. What I do remember is a combination of boredom and irritation: it wasn’t interesting AND wait a minute, in the books set later these elements being active are presented as hugely shocking to these characters. Now I’m supposed to believe they were in the know all along? Pull the other one. It didn’t work.
Your Nikoles was a prequel. I was reluctant to read it because from what we knew from Tuyo, Nikoles was involved in a Bad Thing and I didn’t want to read the book knowing that was coming. But it happened at the beginning, and the rest of the book was about his getting involved with Aras, and I liked that.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric series was written out of order, and some of the later books are infill. I tend to reread them in universe order, not publication order. The same was true of the early Vorkosigan books: Miles was published first and the earlier stories of Shards of Honor and Barrayar came later.
The Comfortable Courtesan books have a follow-on series that includes some books that repeat the events of earlier books from a different pov. I didn’t expect to like that, but dipped into them when I was short on something to read and enjoyed.
On the villain pov, it’s not her own previous book, but KJ Charles’s Henchmen of Zenda does a great job of this, retelling The Prisoner of Zenda from the villain’s pov. Except, of course, it’s more complicated than that. It’s astonishing how well she made the two books fit together.
Oh, yes, you should Absolutely write that prequel, Rachel. I would read it in a heartbeat. I just finished rereading No Foreign Sky and I loved it as much the third (fourth?) time I read it, because this time I was sort of looking for untucked story threads that might possibly become further sequels/prequels. What a fun exercise! What a fun story! Also I love the worldbuilding, which was just enough to get me deeply intrigued with turun/uman culture without pulling me out of current events.
Prequels suffer from being railroaded.
Of course, the further off from the original series, the better, but I’ve just read one centuries beforehand, and there were a few plot points I knew were stuck because of the later series.
A very interesting prequel was the Beka Cooper trilogy by Tamora Pierce, which is set many generations before Alanna – it shows Tortall in a time when lady knights were common and you see the start of the movement which sees females differently, which has taken over and become the established norm by the time of Alanna (Song of the Lionness).
Thank you, EC! I remember the ENDLESS revision of that one, as I took out worldbuilding and put it in and took it out and put it in, aargh. I do think it wound up working well, which is partly (a lot) to Kim’s credit, as she suggested the version she saw was too stripped down. When I re-read it, I agreed and thus much detail work ensued. (Seriously, arrgh!)
OtterB, yes, true, and that’s by far the worst-selling of the Tuyo books because (a) people know this bad thing happens at the beginning, and (b) people know the ending of Nikoles’ story. I don’t know how important each of those things is in creating reluctance to read the story, but I expect both are probably important. I would feel the same way as a reader. The ending of the first part, where Nikoles gets pulled into Aras’ service; and the ending of the second part, where that pretty much gets confirmed, were the scenes that were super clear to me and so compelling that I really had to write the story. I got through the bad thing as fast as I possibly could because I sure didn’t want to dwell on that.
I literally did not realize the Beka Cooper series was set in the same world as the Lioness series. Wow, it’s so different in every way, especially tone, but also pacing and … just … it’s really different!
I liked The Prisoner of Zenda! I don’t remember ever hearing of the Henchmen of Zenda before. What an interesting and fun thing to do — as long as the villain pov is not actually villainous …
The tone and setting of the Beka Cooper trilogy is very different from Lioness. I think part of it is that Pierce’s writing style changed with time, and part of it is that there’s world building that creates a really different era for each of them. An interesting example for sure, Tuyo-Fan.
Garth Nix has 2 prequels to Sabriel and they’re both tragedies. Or well, the second one is only a tragedy because you know what happens, like Nikoles. Props to him for sticking to the original backstory, and really well done— but I wish he’d write something happier in the Old Kingdom.
@ Mona,
I totally agree about Nix’s Old Kingdom. Although the tragedy was well-done and actually added to the worldbuilding, I don’t enjoy tragedy as a genre, so reading both of those books was hard because I knew what was coming for the main characters, so it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I do hope he’ll write more stories set in the Old Kingdom, but I also hope they’ll be happier.
I didn’t even read the two Old Kingdom prequels. I wasn’t interested enough to read the downer stories.
Aside from Marag and Nikoles I finally came up with a couple others: the Lives of Christopher Chant (for books) and the Teen says the game Crisis Core which is a prequel to Final Fantasy VII. They all work in part because the focus isn’t on what they’re a prequel to, they’re telling their own stories set in the same world or setting (Narnia).
In fact they are so much their own stories I don’t think of them as prequels. Which is good! They don’t depend on the existence of the stories set later. For the game, apparently, the lack of attention to what players who know the original know is even more effective than marking points of reference with ominous music or something. Because the characters don’t know almost everyone in it, and definitely the protagonist will be dead at the end. ( And it’s a worthy death, and a spectacular last stand.) So they talk about stuff lightly. Replayers or those who already know the original reportedly say the lightness makes those moments even more of a gut punch. And that’s good writing – it remembers what story is being told and trusts the readers/players to make connections. So do the Jones and Neumeiers.
The other part is a suggestion from the Teen based on something read about the Star Wars prequels – err, the Anakin ones, I have no idea about the others and haven’t seen any but the original trilogy before it was labelled IV, V, and VI – The article suggested that the movies failed because they assumed viewers knew the original and didn’t bother with any world building or foundational work. So there’s a lot of stuff in them that isn’t actually justified within the vehicle that’s telling the story. I’m pretty sure that’s a problem in less successful book prequels too.
E.C., I went in not realizing who Clariel was, so I kept expecting a turnaround. But Terciel & Elinor was exactly like that— a train wreck in slow motion and my heart climbing up my throat. Elaine, wise decision to avoid them, lol.
Re: same story, different POV, I think Rae Carson did that with her Fire and Thorns series. I didn’t read the prequels though, so I don’t know how effective it was.
That’s an interesting point about worldbuilding in prequels; and of course, agreed they should be independent as stories. I’m going to pay more attention to that next time I read a prequel.
Re Henchmen of Zenda and the villain pov. The main villain stays the main villain. The viewpoint character for Henchmen is one of villain’s minor henchmen in Prisoner. He’s not fully a good guy in the revamp, which probably wouldn’t be plausible anyway, but he’s not evil and he has good reasons for working for the villain.
RE: Beka Cooper – she’s the great-great-great…grandmother of George Cooper :D
Her cat is the same cat as Alanna’s, just under a different name…
For the most part, I have no use for prequels, but Magician’s Nephew is a good exception.
The Star Wars prequel trilogy was trash, but Rogue One was good, and is basically an explanation of how they got the Death Star plans
You know, I ought to have realized “Cooper” was an important character’s name in both, but I completely missed it.
Argh, now I remember that I have the complete Fire and Thorns trilogy on my physical-book shelves, but have never read the second or third books. I have at least three trilogies in paper where I’ve read only the first. ARGH, I SHOULD READ THOSE.