The Prequel Dilemma

With every book I write I learn something new. When I start a new one I wonder what discoveries I'll make about writing, what new tricks I'll need to come up with, and what mistakes will slap me in the face.

The lessons I've learned while writing The Magician's Apprentice have mostly run along the lines of "when allowing extra time to write a book in anticipation of house extension interruptions, add a few years extra in case you get a builder incapable or unwilling to finish". Now I've finally stumbled upon a challenge actually relating to writing. I'm calling it "The Prequel Dilemma"

The problem came to my attention when a few of my trusted feedback readers sampling the first half of the book said it wasn't clear the story was set six hundred or so years before the events in the Black Magician Trilogy.

So how to make readers note the time difference? Well, I can't have the characters talk about or think about it, because they can't see into the future (it's not that kind of magic). So having them say "you know, six hundred years from now x is going to happen and someone will have discovered y" just doesn't work.

Of course, there are plenty of hints indicating the time difference in the simpler way the society is structured, the less sophisticated technologies, and the laws and customs in regard to magic. Unfortunately this relies on the reader noticing the differences between this book and the Black Magician Trilogy. Worldbuilding details don't tend to stick in people's mind, and if a reader hasn't read the BMT in a while they may not notice many differences at all. In fact, I know that a lot of readers don't notice the details much even as they read a book. Which is why people sometimes incorrectly describe the world as 'medieval'.

So if the worldbuilding details aren't enough, what is? Well, I did consider a fictional preface, written as if someone in the future is looking back on the events in the book. But I disliked the idea instantly, because the book is not written in the tone of a record, or someone telling a story. I also know some people don't read prefaces. Or even prologues. Or epilogues. Heck, I've even encountered readers who don't know what the word 'prequel' means.

Finally I realised there was only one way to get the information across in a direct and clear way. It has to go in the blurb.

And then I realised that, until now, I really didn't place that much importance in a blurb. After all, as a reader I've found that blurbs are often misleading, or give away too much, so I avoid reading them unless I must. I only ever read the blurb of the first book of a series - I'm not going to read the following books based on the blurb, but whether I liked the first book - and then I generally start a series based on recommendations, familiarity with the author's work, or whether a friend wrote it.

Conversely, I love writing blurbs. I know a lot of authors who hate it, along with writing synopsis and bios. Me, I love all of it. Of course, publishers as likely as not to fiddle with my blurbs until they don't bear any resemblance to what I gave them, but that's all part of the fun of publishing. (And why I love Orbit.)

So now that I've found a solution to The Prequel Dilemma, the next challenge is to make sure the info gets into the blurb and stays there. But I won't have to worry about that for a while yet. After all, I've got to finish writing the book first.