“Will you do a sequel to …”

I fre­quent­ly get requests from my read­ers that read “Will you do a sequel to….”

I take this as a pos­i­tive response as it sug­gests that the read­er has tak­en the char­ac­ters to heart and desires more of them. So, first, thank you.

Strict­ly speak­ing I have done two series; the Pop­py books (six in num­ber) and Crispin (three in number).

Night Jour­neys, Encounter at Eas­t­on, and Cap­tain Grey are, I sup­pose, a series, but there is one book that would com­plete it, which is some­thing I nev­er wrote.

Mid­night Mag­ic and Mur­der at Mid­night con­sti­tute a two book series.

Beyond the West­ern Sea, though writ­ten as one book, was divid­ed and pub­lished as two.  I was asked by a pub­lish­er to do a sequel. I said yes, but then could not recap­ture the voice.

When I wrote the Pop­py series I had no inten­tion of writ­ing a series. It just grew into one. While I loved writ­ing the char­ac­ters, six books seem to be enough.

The Crispin books, how­ev­er, from the begin­ning, were imag­ined as a four-part series. The edi­tor did not want that fourth book. Still, some­day I would like to write the con­clud­ing fourth volume.

And I wish that Beyond the West­ern Sea had been pub­lished as one book.

At the moment I am cur­rent­ly writ­ing a book which has been con­ceived as hav­ing a sequel.

Speak­ing for myself, I can only write a sequel if I feel deeply enough about the char­ac­ters to write more about them. There are times I think I’ve explored a giv­en char­ac­ter or char­ac­ters enough, and gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, I am much more inter­est­ed in char­ac­ters than plot. To go on feels as if I’m just repeat­ing myself.

In short, thank you for sug­gest­ing I write a sequel. I won’t say nev­er, but the like­li­hood is, if I’m not already doing it, I won’t.