I’m the type of writer who does not plot . . . so tackling a sequel was always going to be a bit of a challenge. My writing routine goes something like this:
I sit down, cup of coffee, open a blank word doc page and think about characters. I like to figure out my main characters (there are usually three) first, give them backstories, personalities and flaws but that’s more or less it. I’ve no idea where the story is bringing any of them yet. Most importantly I try to figure out what do they want and how can they get it? Then I just drop them into scenarios and away we go.
So, on my eight novel, The Unexpected Love Story of Lexie Byrne (aged 39 ½) I knew I wanted to write about a woman, approaching forty, who had a regular job in a shopping centre but had figured out how to live a great life as a singleton! She was no victim to society age shaming single women. I was bored sick of that narrative – that single women over forty were desperate or miserable. Lexie Byrne did not need a man or children to be happy, she was independent, a fully formed soul thank you very much.
But Lexie’s best pal Annemarie had just ‘settled’ for a man because she was over forty and desperately wanted kids. It was no, “The Way We Were” with Barbara Streisand as Paul Newman type love story and it got my mind whizzing about chemistry. Then as I wrote I began to question ‘sexual chemistry’ and the power of it. Sexual chemistry is an addictive, extremely powerful, sometimes dangerous chemical. So enter a drop-dead-gorgeous mysterious Englishman and Adam Cooper was born onto the page. A Cotswold nurse that literally knocked Lexie off her feet when he hits her with a door in a pub on a night she didn’t want to go out and turns her happy single life upside down. The thing is I had no idea I was going to have this romance happen, it just evolved as I wrote her story – but it didn’t change her as a character. So Lexie meets Adam in book 1, they fall hopelessly in love, he has an ex-wife and child and Lexie successfully navigated the emotional baggage that brought and then the book was wrapped. However, readers wanted more! It was the first time I had so many messages from readers asking for a sequel. Readers seemed really invested in this character and really wanted to know how her life turned out. Well here’s the thing? So did I! Funny as that sounds (as I literally made her up and her relationship with Adam!)
After meeting with my publishers they really wanted a sequel too so I agreed and had a year to write one. I thought, ah this will be easy enough, the characters are all already written, relationships formed, storylines formatted, I just need to figure out what happens next?
Easier said than done.
I had no clue! I knew I wanted to remain true to her character, she is no fool, she understands her life but now she’s in love with a man she can never fully have. I had to explore that. Would she really settle for that? I knew readers probably wanted it to be the fairy-tale I’d alluded to it being at the end of book 1 but it didn’t seem honest. So I had to go with my gut and put those obstacles and hardships in their paths.
The first novel had a short time line and I wanted to do the same for the sequel. So my first decision was to set it over the Christmas period. What can be a harder time for a long distance relationship then where the man has a family in another country than at Christmas time? I actually started the sequel imagining that Lexie would move to the Cotswolds and I would write about the trials and tribulations of starting a new life with Adam there and the difficulties of his ex-wife living across the road. Then my fingers did the talking. Things did not go that way. Instead I berated myself. That is not what Lexie Byrne would do so instead I stuck rigidly to the characters personality, her independent streak and this helped form the sequel.
It was the best decision I made as it’s what helped most with moving the story on. Now this was awkward at times as the first book was mostly comedy but the sequel is a lot sadder and darker. I struggled with this at times as I knew my readers most likely wanted and expected comedy but I felt I had to stay true to the character and the reality of her life. I’m really happy with the way the sequel evolved and I hope readers will be too.
The hardest part about writing a sequel is that it also must be a stand-alone, so you only have tiny areas to drop back story in, I found this difficult. But I got there. I was reintroduced to all my characters two years later – and I wrote them with as much honesty as I could.
(c) Caroline Grace Cassidy
About The Unexpected Love Story of Lexie Byrne (aged 41 ¼):
An unexpected love story of magical moments, Christmas surprises and life-affirming decisions – Lexie Byrne is back!
And life is wonderful, thank you very much. She has met The One, is still watching Dirty Dancing on repeat, and everything is perfect.
Or is it?
FaceTiming and flying visits aren’t quite the happily ever after Lexie pictured. With her best friend Annemarie nagging her that she deserves more than a part-time lover with an ever-present ex-wife in his life, Lexie can’t help wondering if life is as wonderful as she’s telling herself it is.
Will a surprise trip for Christmas bring the magic back to her relationship? In the city of her dreams, a miracle might just be round the corner . . .
Order your copy online here.
