You start writing your second novel thinking, this’ll be great now! Your first was nominated for some awards and even snagged one. The film rights sold, a veteran screenwriter assigned. Most importantly, you know how to write a book! This second one will be a breeze! Probably everyone is very impressed by you.
Nobody is impressed, asshole.
And for a long time it’s not absolutely clear that you know how to write any books other than the one that’s already out (Last Ones Left Alive, Tinder Press – it’s a road novel, a futuristic Irish dystopia about a girl trying to wrest control of her own life. If you’re interested in Irish sci-fi or literary fiction you might like it).
For your debut, you’d a wide open space, pure creativity, and all the time in the world. But for your second book, you’re pinned down by characters and their stupid needs, and also by place, and by schedule. The first novel is all freedom and the second all constraint.
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With a bit of luck, you were able to develop your own process. Now maybe you write scene lists, or at least make sure you’ve the end nailed down, even if you’re not quite sure how you get there. Maybe you’ve got more definite character arcs. Me, though, I wrote my second novel, Silent City, much in the same way I wrote my first, like a child running into the cold sea, unstructured, screaming. Delighted.
In both projects the main work is trying to get that space between what needs to be said and what’s actually appearing on the page to tighten and shorten and then, hopefully, to disappear altogether. The key difference between novel one and novel two is knowing that it’ll take a while and being (mostly) okay with that. If you can settle into the discomfort, maybe that’s progress.
Does it feel that way for you? I ask Dave Rudden.
Dave wrote the award-winning The Knights of the Borrowed Dark; he also writes Dr Who, and has just been funded to write his first feature. Dave is about the most writerly writer I know – it’s just what he does all day, he’s got a story for every beat of your heart. I also live with him, so he’s a handy one to ask.
Dave’s second book was the middle of a trilogy and this obviously very much informed his experience.
“The first book is the house, the second book is revealing new rooms in the house without changing the original structure and the third is burning the house down.”
I love this. In my debut Last Ones Left Alive, which works as a prequel to Silent City, a plague has turned most of the populace of Ireland into “skrake” – grotesque, zombie-like creatures, out for blood. Silent City shows the reader Phoenix City, the last stronghold of the survivors. It’s the same “house”, but we’re really getting into the awkward parts, the creepy basement and dark crawl-spaces. Maybe there’s a smell of smoke.
When you’ve developed your process a bit, when you feel like you’re a more skilful writer, you can create more complicated worlds – or buildings, anyway. You’ve gathered some of the tools that you need to tackle more challenging work.
What about the experiences of someone who wasn’t writing a series? Deirdre Sullivan is a writer and teacher from Galway with more experience being published than most writers will ever have. She’s also won a CBI Award and an IBA.
“My second book is actually still unpublished, I wrote it between Prim Improper and Improper Order. I wanted to try something different, and it only partly worked. The subject matter wasn’t something my publisher was interested in addressing at that time. I found that aspect of it frustrating, though understandable, and it was a reminder that though there’s so much feeling and care put into a book, publishing is, at its core a business.”
Writing is hard in some ways, but the publishing machine can be hard in others.
Second books can be especially tricky, not just because you have to write a whole new book, which might be more difficult than the first, but because you understand a little now about how publishing works from a writer’s perspective. The title will have a very limited time for publicity. You might not be submitted for every prize. Bookshops have short windows in which they’ll try to sell, or even stock, your work. You’ve a better idea of what the odds of a huge success are. You know that publishing is a business, as Deirdre says.
And maybe, despite that, you’re still excited about being published, though the work and the publishing process. Maybe you literally can’t wait for people to read the new novel. You want to express gratitude and joy for being in this extraordinarily privileged position, a position you dreamed about growing up, a position you really never thought you’d get to experience.
But it’s also true that you’re a little awkward. You tend not to enjoy being around a lot of people, or talking about yourself.
People have put your trust in you: you want to do your best not just for the book you’ve made but for your publishers, who like what you’re trying to do and who have worked so diligently, for years. A publicist is trying so hard to get you this attention you find uncomfortable.
You have to try and figure out a way to deal with that, but you didn’t for your debut and you haven’t had any better ideas in the meantime.
In the same way that your process evolves from book to book, maybe the best thing about this tricky second novel is knowing how little control you have over how the work is published, how it’s packaged, and even god help us how you come across in any press.
You come blinking out to talk to people about what you’ve done and why you did it. You hope that people are impressed (nobody is impressed); you hope that it does well, that readers have a good time, that your publisher sees some sales.
But at the end of it all, there’s nothing for it but to go back running into the cold sea, screaming, delighted.
- Silent City by Sarah Davis Goff is published by Tinder Press on July 13th
