Most people abhor movie sequels. Not sure why since they usually do well in the box office. But I think the lost love comes from not being as good as the first movie. Part of that comes from character development.  With a lot of stories, the main character goes through a change like going from being unconfident to confident.  And once that’s done that character becomes uninteresting.  The sequel now has to depend on plot.

James Bond as a character doesn’t change at all.  All of his stories are sold based on plot and fan base.  It’s no wonder the actors change so much.  They have to to keep the audience interested.

Then came Casino Royale.  One of the things Bond doesn’t do is fall in love.  He’s a slam-bam-thank-you-mam kinda guy.  Nothing wrong with that.  He whips it out, tugs hard, holds tight, and bam.  I was talking about the gun.  But in Casino, Bond not only whipped it out–not talking about his gun–but let his love interest have it.  I’m talking about his emotions.

The man fell in love.

Add the banter between the two love birds, the plot, and a blonde Bond, and you get one of the best Bond movies ever made.  But once Quantum of Solace came out, it received mixed reviews.  And here we get into franchises.

In my search for a literary agent, I came across an article written by one.  He wrote something that made a lot of sense.  As writers, we have to know that the publishing industry is a business.  As a business, once a platform does well publishers will want to build off it to make more money.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a five-book series.  I haven’t read the books, but I’ve spotted them as I walk through Borders.  There are tons of Trilogies.  But they’re small potatoes.  There are book series that last a dozen books.  Some series are even ongoing.  Publishers often urge the writer to continue the series before venturing outside of that domain.

It’s a business.

The problem, as stated above, is character development.  How can a writer continue to make the character interesting?  Put her through a lot of crap through plot?  Maybe.  How about having change occur in supporting characters?  Or what about creating new issues with the main character, and adding change in supporting ones?

Here’s where J.K. Rowling did a great job.  As Harry grew up in those seven years, he changed just like a real person.  Shocking.  That and the red herrings, plot, the close knit friendships made for a great read.  Rowling satisfied the publishing world’s philosophy of building on a fan base, but satisfied her fans by creating incredible plot with highly relatable characters.

As writers, we need to keep at heart the art but also keep an eye on the world of business.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be invited on a friend’s yacht. I was talking about my book to an acquaintance. We were talking about one of the most basic elements of a good story.

Disasters.

I told her that disasters occur at the end of most scenes. And if a scene did end on a positive note, a win for our hero, a disaster would quickly follow.

She was taken aback. And she’s well read. “Pollyanna is boring,” she said.

Now, I was surprised she didn’t know this. Because I took this basic story element for granted. All good writers know this, however.

So why am I posting this? Because I spend so much time hiding writing techniques, making sure different story elements work undercover like a secret agent.

When you watch an Olympic ice skater perform, you don’t see every single technique, the thousands of hours of practice, and the relentless coaching. What you see is greatness.

Not that I want to neglect the practice of making my writing seamless, effortless. But people are totally more concerned with a story being good. Whether they can see the technique used, doesn’t matter. Does your story have passion? Heart?

I read an interview of top editors from different major publishing houses. They said one of the worst things they faced were stories that were technically written well, but lacked heart. At that point they couldn’t tell the writer what to do.

Ask yourself. What is the purpose of your story? What is the message you’re trying to convey?

Take Matrix. The message is simple. Anything is possible if you believe in yourself.

The San Francisco Writer’s Conference was my first writer’s conference. I didn’t know how things worked, but the conference was held over three days full of lectures. The crappy thing about it was several lectures were going on within each hour session. So I had to make a decision on which lecture to attend. Because this was my first conference, I really wanted to focus on the business aspect of publishing.

Over the next week or so, I’m going to post a lecture for you to listen everyday. So come back and check on what I’ve uploaded. Each one is about 45 minutes long, giving the attendees enough time to go to the next lecture.

The first one I’m going to upload is a lecture by best selling suspense romance novelist Brenda Novak. Her trilogy, The Last Stand: Trust Me, Stop Me, Watch Me, has become New York Time Bestsellers. She talks about strategies she’s used to make her more visible and credible before her first book was published.

Please feel free to download these. I apologize for the quality of the audio, but there was a lot of ambient noise. The format of the file is .caf, but you should be able to play them using Windows Media Player or Quicktime. Tell me what you think, and come back as I will upload others.

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What you can expect in future audio uploads from the conference:

Key Note speeches from best selling authors

Body Language

How to write plot summaries

Self-publishing

Branding tactics

Q&A with Agent panels for both fiction and non-fiction

Lecture from a top agent, Donal Maass