Susan and John Ruff, Fantasy Authors

John and I have been busy writing a new short-story in our fantasy series. We’re hoping to give it out as a thank-you gift to our newsletter subscribers. It takes place earlier in the timeline than the other things we’ve written for that universe so far. While we were drafting the story, I got a chance to think about the peculiarities of writing a prequel after the main books in a fantasy series are already written. I’m no expert on writing, but I do have some observations about the process that may be helpful to other Indie authors.

First: It turned out to be a lot harder to stay consistent with already-written material than I thought it would. When writing a sequel, you have to make sure the new book is consistent with what happened in the prior story. A prequel is a little trickier than a sequel, because you have to “rewind” the universe to a time before the first book opened, but still keep it consistent with all the things said later about that earlier time.

I’ve seen prequels with consistency issues. For example, in Return of the Jedi, Luke asks Leia if she remembers her “real” mother. Leia says that she does and gives a brief description of the memory. When I originally watched Return of the Jedi, I assumed that Luke and Leia’s mother sought refuge on Alderaan with her daughter, while the infant Luke was hidden on Tatooine.

However, in the prequel movie we learn that Leia’s “real” mother died just after the twins were born. And yes, I’ve heard all kinds of rationales for why that wasn’t inconsistent with Leia’s comment in Return of the Jedi, but it has always felt wrong to me.

And it’s an easy trap to fall into. When John and I were writing the new short story, I had to go back and look up details in our two published books to make sure things were consistent. As an author, you assume you remember everything perfectly about your own fantasy universe, but it is easy to forget details. Before we finalize the new short story, I may reread both of our existing novels just to make sure there are no glaring inconsistencies.

Second: It’s tricky to find the right balance between giving too much information about the universe and too little. Ideally, the prequel should be a story that would interest both a reader who has never read the other books in the series and one who has.

This became particularly difficult in our current project when addressing the subject of magic. The first novel in our fantasy series talks a lot about the different types of magic and the way they work. In fact, the differences between the types of magic is an ongoing subplot throughout the book. By the time we wrote the second novel in the series, John and I assumed that the readers already understood how magic works, so we just gave a quick explanation as a memory refresher.

As we started writing the prequel story, I wondered how much explanation of magic to include. So far, we’ve included only a brief explanation — just enough (hopefully) to whet the appetite of any new reader without boring our loyal readers who have already read the other books in the series.

Third: For me personally, the hardest part of drafting our new short story was creating an interesting and engaging plotline that would not interfere with events in the later books. If the events in the prequel story are too important or life changing for a character, that character should refer to those events in the later books or at least think about them. Because the novels are already written, that can’t happen. So the short story can’t be too significant for the character.

On the other hand, if the events are insignificant, they may not be interesting for an audience that is used to fantasy novels involving serious threats to the kingdom or the world.

In drafting our most recent short story, will John and I succeed at all those requirements? I guess we’ll find out when our fellow authors at Emerald Cove critique the story.

-Susan 6/2/2023

P.S. If you are interested in checking out our newsletter, here is a link: Newsletter signup. If you subscribe, you can still get a copy of our already-written prequel story Reflections of Disdain as a thank-you gift.