How do you wrangle your own characters back into a new story when you already promised them a happy retirement in the last book? This was something author Michael Mammay had to figure out for the protagonist of his newest novel, Darkside. Tune in to his Big Idea to see just how he pulled it off.
MICHEAL MAMMAY:
Darkside is the fourth book in a series, so coming up with a big idea presented a different challenge than my previous books. Especially because I’d taken a three year break since the first trilogy to write stand-alone books. So not only did I need a plot, I needed a way to bring the reader back into a story that I’d theoretically ended in book three.
Sequels are both easier and harder. They’re easier in that you’ve got a lot of the worldbuilding already in place. But they’re harder because you’ve got to live with what you’ve done. How was I to know that my actions would have consequences? In my case, I have a main character in Carl Butler who was done. With a capital D. He’d been lied to, manipulated, and sent to die by his government. He didn’t trust them—or really anybody. That seemed great as I finished book three. Less great as I started book four, since in each of the previous books, the mystery started with an assignment from—you guessed it—the government.
So I needed a mystery—because at their heart, the Planetside books are all mysteries—but I also needed a way to get Butler involved. So I did that thing that all writers do from time to time but that we never talk about. I stole borrowed an idea. The trick to borrowing ideas is to hide it well. You either want to take the idea and do something so different with it that it’s not immediately recognizable, or, as in my case, you want to get it from an unexpected place. If I take an idea from another science fiction author, then I’m at best derivative, at worst a hack. But if I borrow an idea from a western? I’m part of the time honored tradition of SF writers everywhere who have borrowed from westerns…
Darkside: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Indiebound|Powell’s|Harper Voyager|E Shaver Books
Source: The Big Idea: Michael Mammay
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