Beth Sorensen
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I’ve always been the lover of a good book series that pulls you in and traps you. You know, the kind that leaves you begging for the next book. (Right now, I’m reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series.)

That being said, I’m currently working on the second book of my Thomas Hall series. It has been much harder to write than the first one. I’ve scrapped about 25,000 words (that’s about 100 pages) and am certain there is more yet to come. So I started thinking about why this book is so difficult and there’s only one answer: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK SYNDROME.

In the original trilogy, The Empire Strike Back is the second movie. The one where all hope is lost for the Republic. This is what I’m calling The Empire Strikes Back Syndrome. The part of any series where all hope is lost. If you think I’m making this up, go read NEW MOON by Stephanie Meyer.

Why is this a problem for me? I’m not big on writing sad and depressed. The world is full of such things and I enjoy writing for the escape. In addition, I get a little wrapped up in my characters. So if my main character is depressed, it depresses me.

The question comes to stand, why do so many second books in a series suffer from this syndrome? I’m not sure, but I have a theory. In character based stories, like mine, you main character has a defining moment in each book. In the first book, writers spend a good chunk of time introducing things to the reader like characters and location. So when the character finally gets around to this moment, there has been a slow build up. However, by the second book everything is in place from page one, allowing the writer to jump straight into the deep end. The downside to that is that you still have to entertain the reader after they’ve finished page twenty-five. So as the writer, you dig the character deeper and deeper into a problem to make their defining moment more meaningful. How’s the best way to do that? More often than not, by stealing their hope (at least for a little while).

So there you have it, The Empire Strikes Back Syndrome. Does every writer have to deal with it? Probably not, but I do.