Author faces dilemma in pursuing a book prequel or sequel

This past August Inlandia published my first novel, “Scouts’ Honor.” As an academic historian, I’ve written or edited myriad books. But none of that prepared me for the rigors of novel writing.

Now I’m faced with a different writing challenge. Make that a trap of my own doing: should I and how should I write a sequel? Or a prequel? Or both? Here’s the deal.

Most of “Scouts’ Honor” takes place in 1948. The action centers on rugged, isolated Boy Scout Camp Matulia in southwestern Missouri. Matulia is the summer camp for metropolitan Kaioga City, some 100 miles to the north.

The book’s first page reveals the dead body of 14-year-old scout Harry Vincent sprawled on a rocky trail down from an assemblage of tents to a six-hole outhouse. From there the story builds, with contested circumstances and mysterious happenings. Into the process comes a young female reporter named Ardith Millett. The daily Kaioga City Tribune sends her down to Camp Matulia to write a story about Vincent and the camp. Ultimately she becomes frustrated when the city editor eliminates a key part of her story.

Flash forward nearly 40 years. The reporter, now a prominent Chicago-based journalist, decides to reinvestigate the incident for a book she is writing called “Unfinished Stories.” In the process she unearths sordid and conflicting details. Her relentless latter-day pursuit of the truth also jeopardizes the lives of those involved in the original Matulia affair, in particular former scout Charles “Chucky” Karlson.  Full stop.

When I began writing “Scouts’ Honor,” I audaciously conceived of a chronological trilogy involving Chucky, my somewhat alter ego. But the arduousness of my 12-year pen-to-publication journey convinced this 91-year-old that one novel was enough. That is, I was convinced until various “Scouts’ Honor” readers asked me if I was going to write a sequel. Ergo, my dilemma.

What time period should I use for the sequel? When I originally conceived of the trilogy, “Scouts’ Honor” occurred entirely in 1948. Its sequel, “State Line” would take place from 1949 into the early 1950s, focusing on Chucky Karlson as a high school student.

However, as I revised “Scouts’ Honor,” the book expanded to occupy two time slots: 1948 and the mid-1980s. Now that it’s been published, that story is a done deal. So what should I do? Keep my focus on Chucky in the early 1950s and ignore the fact that Chucky of the 1980s already exists? Refocus my sequel on the aftermath of the 1980s tensions that I’ve already created?

Or maybe I should try combining prequel with sequel. Maybe have the book take place both in the early 1950s and the late 1980s after the latter-day events of “Scouts’ Honor.” This is my puzzlement.

My original conception was to frame “Scouts’ Honor” and “State Line” as part of a continuous coming-of-age story. In “State Line” Chucky would still be burdened by his sense of outsiderism for having spent his early years in tiny, rural Merona, Kansas. His plight is augmented by his Camp Matulia trauma resulting from Harry Vincent’s death circumstances. Adding to his outsiderism is the fact that, in “State Line,” his middle class parents have decided to enroll him in an elite, class-conscious Kaioga City private school.

Yet in writing “Scouts’ Honor” I had also given literary birth to latter-day Chucky. Now Charles, he had gone from being an insecure teenager to becoming a successful San Francisco surgeon. Yet he had then been caught up in the entanglements created by journalist Ardith’s latter-day investigation into Harry Vincent’s 1948 death.

If I stayed with my original conception for “State Line,” I would have to ignore the fact that the 1984 events were already in print. That didn’t work for me. So I’m trying to figure out how to blend Chucky’s high school prequel with his post-1984 relationship with Ardith. It’s a struggle.

In my many decades of writing, this is the first time that I’ve had to deal with a trap that I myself set. I’m fascinated with seeing how it works out, if it works out, if I can come up with a framework to make it work out. Novelists have immense freedom in developing plot lines. But creating new plot lines while remaining faithful to what you have already published is a special writing dilemma.

Carlos Cortés, a professor emeritus of history at UC Riverside, is the author of a memoir, “Rose Hill: An Intermarriage before Its Time,” a book of poetry, “Fourth Quarter: Reflections of a Cranky Old Man,” and his first novel, “Scouts’ Honor.” He can be reached at carlos.cortes@ucr.edu.