Finishing a Trilogy

This week I am delighted to invite Sheila Quigley to my blog. At my request she has talked about some of the issues in writing the last book in a trilogy.

I was on to chapter 4 of Stand By Me, the 6th Seahills novel, when suddenly a group of characters I had never met before invaded my head and just would not go away. Smiler would have fitted in well with the Seahills lot, but there are enough of his age group hanging around the Seahills so I shrugged and got on with Stand By Me. But the very next day Mike Yorke and his Aunt May were standing side by side with Smiler demanding their story be told, no way was I ever going to shake them off.

So I opened a new page and Thorn In My Side was born. In a short time round about 3 months it was done, the rewrite took another month or so and it was finished. Ok I'd left it on a cliff hanger so best start right where I left off, again it took just under half a year to produce Nowhere Man. Then came the hardest part of the trilogy. The Final Countdown out this week in hardback. This took twice the time that the other two books had, a lot of that was because of illness, but I think that some of it was down to the fact that I didn't want to let Smiler, Aunt May, Mike Yorke, Shelly, Danny and the rest of them go.

But it had to be wrapped up there were a lot of strands to tie up, a lot of the people fighting the familes had not met each other and to bring closure they had to meet.

And so It's finished, the last book in a trilogy is certainly the hardest to write, but i'm told by those who have read it that the ending is v good and holds a final surprise.

I have had a lot of e mails from around the world, begging me, threatening me not to let any more bad things happen to Smiler, Im sure the threats weren't real, well I hope they weren't!

So is that the end of it for Smiler and the others?

Never say never.

 

I've read all three books in the trilogy and I loved them all. Like all trilogy's they must be read in order to make sense. I would liken them to Pringles as one you start you just can't stop.

 

Grab yourself copies and enjoy three cracking books featuring unforgettable characters. The Final Countdown hits the shelves this Thursday the 13th

 

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