Writing a trilogy- Recapping vs. Being Repetitive

I would honestly just worry about finishing the said trilogy. Afterwards you'll have a dimplier time of seeing what needs to be added/told.

It's important that you make any dialogue feel natural. Rather than explaining in detail what happened in one conversation / chapter, spread it out over many chapters.

Readers of book 2 might only learn what happened at the climax of the previous novel 1/3 or even 1/2 way through the second book! Why? Because that was when the first conversation came up that it felt natural for them to go into detail about it.

Chapter 1
"Say, Tim, do you remember when we fought off that alien invasion, brought peace to the middle-east and met Beyonce, all while wearing hotdog hats?"
"No, Irving, please regale me for I have recently fallen victim to amnesia!"
DUN DUN DUN

Sorry to be obvious but that was fun for me.

A good tip to avoid unnatural conversations filled with info dump is for a character to bring up an old issue because something about it hadn't been discussed, explored or resolved.

Examples:
- Perhaps a promise / agreement was made between two characters in Book 1, but it has not yet been honoured in Book 2.
- The big bad evil doer is still at large, perhaps after a failed attempt to defeat him at the beginning of Book 2, they discuss what worked in the past (Book 1) and formulate a new plan based on that.
- Emotional problems are often deeper than they appear. Something that appeared resolved in Book 1 could still have pent up emotional pains in Book 2. Perhaps a character lied about their true feelings, and after being pressured in Book 2 they give an emotional outburst and explain that "No! Everything is NOT alright!"

Hope this helps. I, too, am beginning Book 2 of a trilogy and this is how I think about the issue.

You don't recap the events of book 1 for people who haven't read it - the second book of a trilogy is by definition supposed to be read after the first, so you are literally just reminding people in case it has been a long time in between books.

A series is different - each book in a series should be independent, and you shouldn't need to have read any of the others to understand the main plot points of each novel. That doesn't sound like what you're writing though - if you can't just disregard what went before, because it wouldn't make sense, then you're definitely writing book 2 of a trilogy.

So, don't worry about 'explaining' the whole plot of book one - just drop in timely reminders of key events if necessary.

Don't.


Flat out, don't recap. Each book should act as a stand-alone, and further, the first book wouldn't recap what happened prior to the story starting; so why load up history in the sequential books?


I'm writing a series, and I don't recap on what happened. I might tell of the situation that the characters are in, because of what happened before the book started, but that's to let the reader understand why they are in that situation. I do not break out into a history lessen, nor do I rehash something.


Write each book as a stand alone, as they are self-contained.

In all cases, a reader will most probably read the first book, so recapping is useless in book two.


I should add: There is always a backstory, even with the first book, with each character, with each action, with each breath, everything. You need to set a degree of how much backstory you wish to present to the reader.

There'd be no harm in sharing a brief synopsis of book #1 with the critique group to get them up to speed. I can imagine it's frustrating to have them focus on issues that are not what you need help with.

From your earlier post I thought the first two books were in the hands of professional editors.

I'm confused as to where the critique group comes in for portions of the second book in this trilogy.

Are they vetting changes suggested by the editors? Did the editors comment on there being insufficient backstory or recapping?

Tigerlilly79 said:

I'm having problems recapping important parts of the first story without feeling like I'm being too repetitive. I know I need to provide some background info from the first story in case someone hasn't read it, but I don't want to bore the readers who have. When I go to my critique group with portions of the second book in the trilogy I keep getting repsonses like, "It's very well written, but is there a back story here?" "What's wrong with that character?", etc. Things they would know if they had read the first book. I guess I'll just focus on reviewing the main plot of the story and important facts about the characters that readers need to know. Has anyone else had this isuue?

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Raymond E. Feist puts recaps at the beginning of his books in his Riftwar saga. It's a fantasy series for anyone who doesn't know. I find the recap is helpful for me when it's been a while since reading the previous book. If you put it there and make it clear that it's a recap, readers can choose to read it or not. I see no harm in this type of recap.

You bring up only what is necessary, only as it becomes so. Look at Harry Potter and the Hunger Games - both recap previous books and both do so briefly.

Otherwise you could have an authorial note in the the front which recaps the events of the previous novels - I've seen this done. Watch me now try and remember from where.

WillSauger said:

Flat out, don't recap. Each book should act as a stand-alone

[...]


I'm writing a series, and I don't recap on what happened.

[...]

Write each book as a stand alone, as they are self-contained.

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Read what the OP actually wrote - you might be writing a series, but they are writing a TRILOGY. As I said in my post, the two are very different things.

Yes, the FIRST book of a trilogy should stand alone in order to sell it to a publisher, just in case it doesn't take off and book 2 never gets to print, but book 2 of a trilogy by definition is NOT a stand alone. It is not a sequel either. It is book 2. Book 3 follows. That isn't a stand alone either.

A series is a series. A trilogy is a trilogy. Never the twain shall meet.

Theo81 said:

You bring up only what is necessary, only as it becomes so. Look at Harry Potter and the Hunger Games - both recap previous books and both do so briefly.

Otherwise you could have an authorial note in the the front which recaps the events of the previous novels - I've seen this done. Watch me now try and remember from where.

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Kevin J. Anderson does this in his Saga of Seven Suns series and Terra Incognito trilogy.

thepicpic, swooping in to the rescue like a... err... swooping thing.

Yeah, I'm with Kallithrix, I think you should limit the recap as much as possible and only do it when it comes up naturally (I would expect some references to what happened before in dialogue).

I actually think it's a good thing that your readers have picked up on the fact that there is another part out there that they don't know about, because it means whatever happened in the first book is probably pretty meaningful. Book two in a trilogy should be confusing at times to someone who hasn't read the first one, IMO. However, to help them help you better, I do think Buffysquirrel's advice about sending a synopsis separately would be a good idea, just so they can judge better where characters and plot points are coming from.

Kallithrix said:

Read what the OP actually wrote - you might be writing a series, but they are writing a TRILOGY. As I said in my post, the two are very different things.

Yes, the FIRST book of a trilogy should stand alone in order to sell it to a publisher, just in case it doesn't take off and book 2 never gets to print, but book 2 of a trilogy by definition is NOT a stand alone. It is not a sequel either. It is book 2. Book 3 follows. That isn't a stand alone either.

A series is a series. A trilogy is a trilogy. Never the twain shall meet.

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Have to agree, here. As someone working on a YA Trilogy, I've struggled with the idea of needing to recap in books 2 and 3, but I've come to understand it as a necessary evil. Why? Because ideally, people are reading your book hot off the press. And in the world of YA, it's gonna be at least a year until they read the next one. It's conceivable they could read many other books in that time; they're not necessarily gonna remember all of the ins and outs of your first book, so it's important to remind them of key characters and events as they become relevant when you get into the 2nd and 3rd books.

This habit used to annoy me until I realized that the books I was reading had already been out awhile and I wasn't waiting nearly as long for their sequels. The first time I read a sequel (after waiting a year) I understood. Personally, I still don't like the idea that in years to come (when my trilogy is finished) there might be some needless recap in there (if someone were to read it all at once), but I'm just getting nitpicky... better to have it (and do it well) than not. I toyed with the idea of an upfront recap, but I can't help but feel like that's just lazy.

I totally agree with others who've said this is a difficult question and frustrating. It sounds like (from the OP's description) that there's not been enough description/potential recap because the readers are confused. Reader confusion is never good, so even if it is a recap, there should be something inside to clue them as to what happened previously.

I read a book recently, I think "The Desert Spear"? But it was a sequel, and it felt stand alone to me, but there were portions that were definitely recapping. Because I was a new reader it all felt relevant to me, but previous readers might've been bored.

As has also already been said here, don't info dump all at once. I got a book from the library that I'd read the first book on in that series and the whole first 20 pages were info dump imposed over a funeral scene. It'd been long enough that I couldn't remember all the specifics of that first book, but man, the info dump irritated me so much, I put that sucker book down and didn't pick it up again. I seriously don't know how it got past the agents/editors with so much info dump so soon. I can be a picky reader, but that was...pretty awful.

So recap in the right way is good, but in the bad way it's...really bad.

Luzoni said:

I totally agree with others who've said this is a difficult question and frustrating. It sounds like (from the OP's description) that there's not been enough description/potential recap because the readers are confused. Reader confusion is never good, so even if it is a recap, there should be something inside to clue them as to what happened previously.

I read a book recently, I think "The Desert Spear"? But it was a sequel, and it felt stand alone to me, but there were portions that were definitely recapping. Because I was a new reader it all felt relevant to me, but previous readers might've been bored.



As has also already been said here, don't info dump all at once. I got a book from the library that I'd read the first book on in that series and the whole first 20 pages were info dump imposed over a funeral scene. It'd been long enough that I couldn't remember all the specifics of that first book, but man, the info dump irritated me so much, I put that sucker book down and didn't pick it up again. I seriously don't know how it got past the agents/editors with so much info dump so soon. I can be a picky reader, but that was...pretty awful.

So recap in the right way is good, but in the bad way it's...really bad.

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I was a little bored by the recap sections in The Desert Spear. There wasn't that much, though. A lot of it was looking at events from the previous book from the perspective of a new character. It had been a few months since I read the first book, though, so I was glad I wasn't expected to remember everything that happened.

Yeah, don't recap. In addition to the points others have made, also consider this: if you tell new readers what happened in the prior books, you're making it less likely that they will want to buy those earlier installments and learn the whole story. After all, why should they spend the extra money if they already know every major detail that occurred?

I recall that fantasy author Mercedes Lackey does a nice job of this. Her "Heralds of Valdimar" books can be picked up at any point in the series, and she finds a way of referring back to the past events without making it obvious or ham-handed.

Might be worth checking out some of her trilogies if you'd like to check out her technique.

If I pick up one book in a series, or a trilogy, and I find I can't get a complete reading experience from that book without having to buy one or more of the other books in the series/trilogy, i will not only want my money back, I will never give another dollar to that author. Ever.

Being part of a trilogy does not excuse the requirement for each book to be of stand-alone quality and content.

I agree with others who've said recaps should be used sparingly and only as it naturally fits the story. I typically don't like reading straight-up recaps at the start of Book 2, but I did enjoy Karen Marie Moning's recap in Book 2 of her Fever series. It was a quick summary and really set the tone again. It might be an example worth looking at.