Content warning: The following contains what some may consider excessive authorial navel gazing.

I never intended for my first novel, Helium, to be anything more than a stand-alone story. When I finally wrote the words, “The End,” I figured that was it. My main character, Joan, would head off toward the eastern horizon and live the rest of her life in the anonymity afforded fictional people who reach the conclusion of their narrative arcs. I could wish her well and start assembling the bones of my next story.

Which is what I did. After taking some time off to give my writing brain a rest and smash my head against walls in a futile attempt to land an agent or a publisher, I turned my attention to my next project. I decided that if my first novel wasn’t good enough to get published, I’d just have to write another one that was. Admirable persistence, I guess. Or maybe just willful denial. Either way, I moved on.

But then something unexpected happened. As I wrote deeper into the second book, I realized that one of my main characters was resisting my best efforts to make her real. (That may sound overly precious and writerly, but I swear, fictional people are capable of torturing their creators.) The truth was, I didn’t find her very interesting. She was getting in my way. That’s when it hit me: Why not insert Joan, the character I created in Helium, into the new book? I knew Joan. I enjoyed her. I could bring her back to life, thirty years older, in a new world seemingly unrelated to the one I created in Helium. It would be fun! I got to work.

Joan’s resurrection reinvigorated my writing, made it less of a slog. The words flowed again. The story started coming together. I was relieved. But there was something else. As I built out the second book, it gradually occurred to me that I was constructing something I had never considered creating:

A series.

Even though I was still working on the second book, a third one was already taking shape in my mind, a story that would complete the journey that Joan began in Helium. How about that? Helium was no longer a stand-alone. It was the first book in a trilogy—a trilogy in which Joan was the common thread.

Which created a new problem of a very different sort. If I was serious about writing a trilogy, Joan’s mere presence would be insufficient. I would need create additional links among the three books—hints of things that happened or would happen. Readers would expect them. I needed to return to Helium.

I needed to lay some Easter eggs.

The following short excerpt is just one example of the Easter egg additions I made to Helium after realizing I was writing a trilogy. The scene takes place at a flying saucer convention in the middle of the Mojave Desert, at a place called Giant Rock. Joan and her friend Irma are sitting at a table, hawking copies of a book written by their friend George, when a man approaches. What transpires may seem inconsequential, but it actually creates a crucial connection to a climactic scene in the second book. (Bonus: Depending on your knowledge of flying saucers and jazz, you may recognize the real-life historical figure who engages Joan and Irma in conversation.)

As the morning progressed, more and more people stopped to fondle George’s books and express disappointment at his absence. Some even made purchases. Irma wandered off and returned with a pair of Pepsis. Between sales, she and Joan engaged in a running commentary. Most of the attendees were of a familiar type, the sort that thought nothing of traveling long distances in pursuit of their obsessions. Joan had encountered countless examples of them at Palomar Gardens. But every so often, one of the browsers surprised. The most unforeseen among them was also the most well-mannered.

“Good morning, ladies.” The speaker was an anomaly, a black man, a single raisin suspended in a steaming and blandly monochromatic bowl of Cream of Wheat. He bowed slightly at the hip.

Joan took longer than necessary to formulate a response: “Good morning.”

The man thumbed through George’s book, then closed it with something approaching veneration. “The author is not here, I take it?”

Irma spoke up: “We’re afraid not.”

“That’s unfortunate. I was hoping to speak with him.”

Joan and Irma smiled back, waiting for him to elaborate.

“He and I have something in common,” the man continued. “We have both met beings from other worlds. I, however, had the good fortune of visiting one of those worlds. Saturn, in fact.”

“You, too?” Joan cringed, hoping her reply didn’t sound too sarcastic.

“I understand,” the man said, adjusting the knitted cap on his head. “You all think this is a white folk’s game. Why wouldn’t you?” He extended both arms, presumably calling attention to the general pallor of his surroundings. “But it’s not. I first made contact back during the war, long before any of your people did. There are no color distinctions in our infinite universe. I hope you’ll pass along that message to the author.” He repeated his little bow and disappeared into the crowd.