Hibernating during the winter months never has bothered me much because I usually use the time to write books. Surprisingly, writing my latest creation turned out to be fun, not the torture I’d imagined it was going to be.
You see, last year during my annual hibernation, I came up with an idea for a science-fiction story called Inside the Blue Cube, about a woman who goes to an alien-abduction-themed party, drinks something called “the elixir” and wakes up inside a room that’s basically a glowing blue cube.
I ended up writing it as a novella, which is shorter than a novel but longer than a short story. I gave it a HFN (happy for now) ending, as opposed to the more popular HEA (happily ever after), then published it and that was that.
Or so I thought.
Soon, messages of protest arrived. “How can you leave us hanging like that? You have to write a sequel!” and “You’d better write a sequel because I won’t be able to sleep until I find out what happens next!”
The problem was, I had no idea what would happen next, which was the main reason why I’d ended the book when I did. Another reason was I hadn’t wanted to get into any of the anticipated science-fictiony stuff. No spaceships, no weird planets, no three-eyed creatures, no futuristic societies and no weapons of mass destruction.
Nope. I’d wanted no part of that.
So
in the novella, I purposely kept my main characters on Earth – a place I like
to think I’m fairly familiar with.
But when mail continued to arrive, protesting the ending of my novella, I began to think, “If everyone is so darned interested in what happens to these characters, then I must have done something right to make them so endearing.”
So a couple months ago, after about 25 “deep thinking” walks in the woods that nearly resulted in frostbite, I finally came up with what I thought might be a decent plot for the sequel. Yes, it involved a spaceship, several new species, assorted futuristic gadgets, and even a couple miracle cures, but I had no choice. I mean, if you’re going to label a book as science fiction, then it has to contain …well, fictional science.
But I firmly vetoed including any weapons of mass destruction in my book. My newly created planet was going to be a peaceful one…except for a fearsome species that was in the habit of separating people’s heads from their bodies. But every decent story needs a villain or two…or in this case, a few hundred.
Actually, the fact the book was pure fiction gave me the creative freedom to write anything I pleased. If, for example, I wanted to write about someone on my newly created planet getting into a terrible accident and losing a gallon of blood, and then being saved by a successful transfusion of apple juice, then no one could dispute it, saying it was impossible…because it’s fictional science. So to me, that meant the sky was the limit.
Soon, I was writing over 2,000 words per day, my fingers fairly flying over the keyboard as the creative juices (no, not apple juice) flowed and new ideas popped into my head in rapid succession. And I didn’t come up for air until I’d written nearly 85,000 words. This book was no puny novella like its predecessor…no, this was a bona-fide novel (insert some grunts and chest pounding here).
So, to my surprise, they couldn’t rave enough about my latest achievement. One even said she’d become so engrossed in the plot while reading it, she completely forgot to do any proofreading.
There was, however, only one problem with the book, which all three of them pointed out to me.
“You can’t just leave it off where you did. It’s absolutely crying out for a sequel.”
Here
we go again.
On
the plus side, I still have a year until next winter’s hibernation period to
think about it.
Sally Breslin is
an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for
newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several
novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science fiction. Contact
her at: sillysally@att.net
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