Adding Extra Features to Novels
I’m old enough to remember, as an adult, the shift from movies on VHF to movies on DVD. (In fact, I’m old enough to remember the world before VHS, but that’s beside the point.) DVDs were really for movie lovers, because not only did you have the movie itself, often in more than one language and with your choice of subtitles, you got to enjoy special features.
These days, when most of us have migrated from DVDs and Blue ray disks to digital downloads, those hard media are still popular with some. I assume it’s those who really enjoy watching the director’s cuts, commentaries, and deleted scenes.
I’m currently writing the second novel in my series, The Adventures of Bodacious Creed. The first book is Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western, and it’s available on Amazon and Audible. The one I’m currently writing is Bodacious Creed and The Jade Lake.
One difference between the books is this. The first one shifts between different viewpoint characters to give readers a more complete view of everything that’s happening. For “Jade Lake,” I decided to stay in the head of James “Bodacious” Creed. Readers will know only what he knows.
However, there have been a few times that I thought it would be fun to show what’s happening behind the scenes, to other important characters. I decided I could write short stories about those incidents, but that I wouldn’t want people who hadn’t read the book reading them. By necessity, they’d be filled with spoilers. Yet the would give readers an expanded view of the novel. What could I do with this idea?
Then, it came to me. I could write a few such stories and add them to the end of the book. Once a reader has finished the tale, if they want to dig a little deeper, get to know some of the characters a little better, they could read these stories. They’re the equivalent of deleted or post-credit scenes.
I’m not sure how well this will work for a novel, and I’m not certain I’m going to do this. I do like the idea, if for no other reason than that it would give me an excuse to write these stories and share them in an appropriate, spoiler-free place.
What do you think? As a reader, is this something you’d like to see? As a writer, is this something you might like to try? Feel free to comment below. If you’d like to get notified when I share something new in this blog, subscribe to my newsletter below that.
“I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.” ~ Toni Morrison