Will there be a sequel?

Hav­ing writ­ten as many books as I have, and series books and sequels being so pop­u­lar among read­ers these days, it is not sur­pris­ing that I am often asked some­thing like, “Are you going to write a sequel to The Book with­out Words?”. Among oth­er books about which I’m often asked a sim­i­lar ques­tion are The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle, The Good Dog, and Beyond the West­ern Sea.

In many cas­es I have thought of writ­ing sequels. (Mid­night Mag­ic has a pre­quel, Mur­der at Mid­night). To con­tin­ue on with a sto­ry, I need to feel a com­pelling need to go on. The sequel to Night Jour­neys—Encounter at Eas­t­on—came about because I tru­ly wor­ried about the fate of the pro­tag­o­nists on the first book. I wor­ried so much I had a dream as to what happened—and that dream became the plot of Encounter at Eas­t­on.  (The only time that ever worked!)

Sequels also have to be jus­ti­fied by the pub­lish­er. The sales of book one have to be suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy book two. That doesn’t always hap­pen, even though book one has pas­sion­ate readers.

Also, for me, since I’m always engaged in a new project, a sequel requires me to redis­cov­er the voice and style of a par­tic­u­lar book, some­thing not always easy to do. The Pop­py books were an excep­tion. I enjoyed writ­ing about the char­ac­ters so much I want­ed to write anoth­er and anoth­er book in the saga.

The best way for me to think of sequels is to plan to do so from the start. The Crispin books were thought of orig­i­nal­ly as a mul­ti-vol­ume sto­ry. In fact, the fourth book is in my head, but yet to be on paper. At the moment I am work­ing on a new book that assumes a sequel.

All this said, regard­ing The Book with­out Words; yes I have thought of a sequel. But alas, I have no plans (or time) to write it.