Re: small versus large scale optimization

In article <13g7r7efi825l5b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Patricia C. Wrede <PWrede6492@xxxxxxx> wrote:

What I've noticed about a lot of prequels is that many of them seem to lack
the intensity that's present in the book they're a prequel to -- the
characters' accounts in the original book have some sort of oomph to them
that just isn't *there* in the prequel, however well it seems to be written.
I'm not sure whether this is a problem with the reader (i.e., me) already
"knowing what happens" and therefore being unable to really feel tense about
the various obstacles, or whether it's that the writer was bored and it
shows, or whether it's that the writer got to a point in the prequel where
the plot wanted to take a sharp left, but the writer couldn't allow it to,
or whether it's something else entirely.

As a data point: in my youth I tended to buy second or third books of
trilogies or series (I sometimes still do) without having read #1.
I developed a rule of thumb: if, having read the second book, I
wanted to read the first, it was a good series. If I only wanted to
read the third, I wasn't hooked by the characters or setting but only
by the plot, and the books could be skipped. (This is why I never read
any Jordan except _The Great Hunt_. I figured if I didn't care what
happened in book #1, I basically didn't care.)

So some of the prequel oomphlessness probably does come from the
reader's foreknowledge, but not all of it--I have found quite a
few series where having read #2 or #3, I wanted to read #1. (Most
recently Rebecca Bradley's _Lady in Gil_, which was startling as book
1 was *very* different in tone from book 3.)

Being unable to take a left turn would be a potentially serious
problem for me as a writer. It'd be easier to write a prequel
that was somewhat distant in time, place and/or characters, so
I'd have more room to wiggle. It amazes me that Card can make the
_Ender's Shadow_ concept work.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@xxxxxxxxxx
.

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