How to Ruin Your Sequel in 7 Easy Steps

By Rachel Leitch

By A Concerned Sequel Destroyer

You’ve finished your first book or film or whatever it was you were working on. Now your audience or your mother or maybe just yourself are clamoring for a second installment. Am I right?

Oh, good. I love being right.

I know you came here expecting a lovely little article from some writer, maybe from Indiana. And perhaps you were expecting that article to be about how to write an amazing sequel that will make the original even better and maybe even make the audience just as happy.

Lucky for you, I put a stop to that nonsense. You’re welcome.

You may not know this, but I’m actually an expert in sequels. More specifically, I’m an expert in everything that makes those sequels flop when they reach readers’ hands or the big screen.

All of that is me. I’ve been working on it for years. It’s part of my grand plan to take over the universe. But we don’t need to talk about that right now.

You’re here because you want to help. You want to make sure your readers don’t get that same wholesome experience they got from the first one. Let’s face it, if you have more than one book running around making such a big difference, well, things could get out of hand very quickly.

At worst, you want your audience to be merely entertained, even as something niggles the back of their mind wondering why you didn’t give that plot point a little extra thought or wondering what’s up with that character arc.

At best, you want them to slide it onto a shelf never to be touched again and to curse your name to the winds.

And I’m just the person to help you with that. Over the years, I’ve developed seven steps that will, without fail, ruin a sequel beyond repair. If you’re ready, we can even get started right now.

Step 1:

 Erase all character development

*slides a box of Kleenex towards you* I know it’s hard.

You put so much work into the character arcs in the first one. It was one of the things your audience loved the most. It’s hard to say good-bye to that.

But if you want your sequel to be properly ruined, you’re going to have to erase any progress your main character made in the first installment. Luckily for you, there are several ways to do so, some more painful than others.

-Erase the arc entirely.

Abracadabra. Poof. Make it seem like it was never there.

This is perhaps the easiest one to do because it doesn’t take any work. You just start over like the first installment never happened. They never learned anything. Never developed at all. Then you can just write the same development into the sequel.

Like Disney’s Frozen II. After we spent the entirety of the original Frozen watching Elsa and Anna work to become closer and more understanding to each other, we open Frozen II to find that everyone is now completely smothering Elsa and treating her as if she can’t do anything on her own. They learned absolutely nothing, it seems. It’s glorious.

-Focus on minor characters.

If it’s your first time erasing an arc and you’re still feeling a bit squeamish, you might try focusing on the minor characters instead.

For this to work best, you will need to give your main character an arc with a lot of potential. Say, like maybe they have an arc reactor in their chest that’s keeping them alive, but is also putting out chemicals into their bloodstream that are slowly killing them.

And then simply leave it there and don’t touch it all. (I see you thinking about touching it. Stop that.)

Focus on the minor characters. They seem more exciting than your main character sometimes anyway.

Be warned—this will make some audiences happier than others, since they might want to know more about those terribly interesting minor characters. But for a beginning sequel destroyer, this is a perfect place to start.

A great example of this is Iron Man 2. Oh, please, don’t start the argument that we needed that minor character development for the rest of the universe. Perhaps you did, but you must admit, it makes for some delightfully dull viewing if you just watch Iron Man 2 by itself.

It’s wonderful because it tricks the audience a little bit—they were happy to learn a little bit more about Rhodey and Pepper and the like, but it wasn’t until the end that they realize they never got any of that arc that was set up for Tony.

-Stall or muddle development.

I’m out of Kleenex. Alright, fine, if you can’t bring yourself to part with your arc from the first one, we can work with that, too.

After all, they’ve learned their lesson, haven’t they? Your job now is to make sure they don’t learn any more. Don’t begin a new arc flowing out of your old one for any reason.

If you must give them a goal to fool the readers, then just select one that sounds good on paper and run with it. It doesn’t have to go anywhere. It doesn’t have to fit their character or have anything to do with their arc in the first one. You can even change it halfway through. The important thing here is for it to sound like there’s a goal even when there’s really not.

This is part of why Star Wars: The Last Jedi made so many people so wonderfully angry. Development on some characters (such as Rey) simply halted, while others had goals that sounded good, but made little sense (such as Finn, Poe, and Rose).

Examples to Avoid: I missed the chance to destroy this one movie called Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I know, I know. It was such a prime opportunity. I mean, Cap is just a naturally good guy. They could have made a whole movie with no character arc at all. So many opportunities to muddle it.

But instead they added in this plot about his old best friend being evil and coming to fight him? Ugh. Conflict and motivation everywhere.

Step 2:

 Destroy what your characters worked for

This goes hand in hand with erasing their arc. But the difference is this one can be done without erasing the arc if you can’t quite stomach it yet. (No judgment here. Ruining a sequel is a journey.)

What was your character’s crowning achievement in the last one? Perhaps he found a significant object, met an important person, developed a significant relationship, or saved a place they loved?

Make sure to destroy it by the time the sequel opens or as the story goes on. It can actually be quite fun to scheme up ways to destroy these things they worked so hard for.

The goal with all of our sequel-ruining work is to make the original story a lie.

If your characters learned a lesson, un-learn it. If a relationship was pushed together by a character being dead or absent, make sure that character returns in the sequel. If something could never happen in the original, make sure it happens.

There are so many examples of this one, but I suppose I have to settle for just one.

Did I already mention Frozen II? Ah, well, I’ll mention it again.

Elsa and Anna spend the entire first movie working to become closer sisters only for the sequel to tell them that they need to be apart, returning to the place they were in at the beginning of the first movie. Their significant relationship is successfully ripped to shreds. Glorious. Ten out of ten.

Step 3: 

Ignore clear-set rules

I know you worked hard to set up all those rules for how the world and everything worked back in the first story. But really, rules are meant to be broken. This is a wonderful way to keep your audience guessing. They’ll never know what could happen next if that thing you said could never happen in the first one turns around and happens.

Like that rule in the one above where I’m only supposed to use each movie as an example once. I broke that one fabulously.

Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet does this beautifully. The first movie makes it extremely, extremely clear that characters within their games cannot simply game-hop and decide to live in another game, as it will throw their native game into chaos.

I loved that, because it gave so much opportunity to break the rules in the second one. The sequel movie movie ends with Vanellope game-hopping from her game to an online racing game for good. No damage is done to her native game, in case you were wondering.

You didn’t see that one coming, did you? Worked like a charm. I mean, hey, at least the characters learned an important lesson, so we can overlook a few bent rules here and there. Right?

Step 4:

Disappoint expectations and foreshadowing

Even the best-made sequels do this to a certain degree.

Everyone comes into a book or movie with their own set of expectations, and sadly, there’s no way to know them all. (I’m working on some strategies to solve that.) Someone will inevitably be disappointed, even if you’ve done your best work.

But we’re not doing our best work, are we?

What you will need to do for this one is to be very aware of what reader expectations are for the second story.

Don’t know how to find those? I think you have some clues. Look at your first story. What would you naturally expect to happen? And you know you snuck some clues in there for events that could happen, but didn’t in the original. What did you foreshadow and hype up?

Now go as far away from that as possible.

My favorite thing to do is to hold it out till the last second. Make it look for as long as possible like that thing is going to happen, then at the last second, yank the rug out from underneath them and throw something else in its place.

Most of the time, if you hear about a sequel getting a lot of hate, while other people seem to love it to death, this is why. They think foreshadowing has been unfulfilled, and their expectations for the series have been broken.

Example to Avoid: I don’t really have any for this one. (Broke the rules again.)

Because unfortunately, no two people are the same. Even if people absolutely hate a movie, there will be that ONE person who still loves it and pledges their loyalty to the author.

Step 5:

Rewrite the first story in a new setting

This one is so fun and so easy! It is the ultimate time-saver when it comes to writing sequels.

Instead of racking your brain trying to work a new plot and character arc that connects to your old one (if you’re still holding on to that, perhaps try scrolling to the top of the article and reading it again?), you simply take the essence of the old story and put it in a new setting, maybe with a super cool shiny weapon and some new characters.

You have to be careful, because this can be sneaky. If you make it too different, audiences won’t realize it’s the same story. And you know, if they liked the first one enough and your second one is unique enough, they’ll overlook that it’s basically the same story. There. You’ve been warned.

Step 6:

Don’t dare make any big, crazy changes

From our tips so far, you might think that I’m all about change. No, no, no. I’m all about certain types of change.

Anybody can make changes. They can examine their first story, see the weaknesses, see what they need to add or eliminate to make the character or plot the best it needs to be, and make that change.

If that’s the kind of change you’re thinking about, bury that inkling as far down as you can, please and thank you.

Thor: The Dark World does an amazing job of burying that inkling. After the first movie, it would have been so easy for those writers to think, “hey, maybe we need to change some things . . . maybe these movies aren’t really about Thor and Jane’s relationship, but actually about Thor and Loki’s conflict and relationship.”

But they took that and buried it. They held onto that Thor and Jane romance as long as they could. It infuriated some viewers. It was glorious.

Example to Avoid: This is perhaps the biggest embarrassment of my career. The Empire Strikes Back. They changed a lot of stuff in there. I mean, who came up with the idea of Vader being Luke’s father?! And tempting Luke to the Dark Side?! Still makes me angry just thinking about it.

And with that, we have come to the number one, ultimate rule of how to ruin a sequel. Are you ready? Buckle in. It’s . . .

Step 7:

Just put a 2 after the title of your first story

That’s it! That’s the number one way to annoy people.

Instead of coming up with a fresh new title, something that still reminds people of your first title while being fresh and new, just put a 2 after the original title.

Frozen 2. Toy Story 2. National Treasure 2. Night at the Museum 2. See how much fun it is?

I tried to get Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to see my reasoning, but they were not as amused.

If you want to be especially classy, you can make it a II instead of a 2.

What? You thought my last point was going to be more? You’re feeling your expectations and foreshadowing broken? Isn’t it a wonderful feeling?

Conclusion:

It must be pointed out that, despite your best efforts, it is nearly impossible to completely ruin a sequel. Perhaps if you do all seven steps in this order, it might be successful.

But more often than not, sequels only do one or two of these things. And while an error or two may niggle in the back of the mind, it allows those sequels to still keep fans. All the sequels I mentioned have devoted fans.

I worked so hard on Star Wars: The Last Jedi and made so many people mad, but I actually heard of this crazy writer named Rachel who still liked it.

So don’t get discouraged if your audience isn’t immediately enraged. It takes time to be able to destroy sequels with the finesse that I have amassed.

Keep practicing. You’ll get there. And then we can take over the world together, if you’d like.

But please let me know in the comments below (as I have heard that is the thing to do)

--what were some of your favorite sequels? Which ones disappointed you? I’m always looking for more ways to improve my craft of sequel destroying.

Note: As you’ve figured out, there was a little bit of snark and satire to this article. (If you want more satire, check out this amazing article, which may or may not have served as inspiration for me: https://kingdompen.org/never-outline/)

My hope was to lay out some major pitfalls of writing a sequel or second installment while making you smile a little bit. I ultimately hope you’ve been encouraged, not only that you CAN write an amazing sequel that is just as inspiring as the original, but also that even if you make a mistake here or there, it’s not the end of the world and most readers will not swear you off.