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Do you conciously "pre-conceive" your stories as trilogies? If so, what are the benifits and/or the limitations of the trilogy format in terms of either marketing or storytelling. Do you prefer to let the story dictate the number of books in the series? If so, what's your personal limit, and why?

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This is always a good question and very similar to one that came up on another site. From a reader's point of view, I will always believe a novel length work should start, develop, and have a logical conclusion within its pages. It's simply one way of being considerate to the reader. It doesn't mean there can't be questions that remain unanswered or that there can't be a logical continuation of the story. Instead, it only means that when I finish a book I should feel the primary questions have been answered and I should feel satisfied... much like having finished a good meal.

From a creative point of view, it can be that a complete story can be larger than can be practically contained in a single volume. If that is the case, the author has to determine where the story breaks and should then determine how to make the break and still have each volume "feel" like a stand alone project.

One work that comes to mind is the so-called "the Berserker" series by Fred Saberhagen. It began life as short stories published individually in Science Fiction periodicals. It was out of the ordinary from any two stories to have the same protagonist. It was a series only from the point that the central antagonists were sentient machines bent on eliminating all sentient life from the Milky Way Galaxy. As the series continued and grew, a few characters from the early works appeared in later stories. Yet, it remained that each story had its own specific beginning, plot development, and ending. As such, they were stand-alone works in that respect. Decades after the series began, the stories appears in multiple collections a several novel length works.

This type of serialized writing would normally not be considered in the same light as a trilogy or even the seven-novel Harry Potter series. Still, may of the same rules apply with regard to allowing the reader to feel satisfied when they have completed any one within the series.

My first novel-length work was conceived as a single story. I like Glenn Stuart's comment, I truly believed I had resolved all of the questions and plot elements when the final page was written. However, I've had very many readers ask when the sequel would be finished. To which my reply would be "Ah..." Of course other readers would simply ask, "What happens next?". That was easier to answer with "Happily ever after." Unfortunately most would have none of that. So I find myself in the situation of drafting the concept of a second book.

My other work-in-progress was conceived to be written across multiple volumes because the story was too large to be contain in a single book. Still each book is designed from the ground up to stand on its own. It is, however, a difficult process.

 

Be well,
William

When I used Cyrus the Great's life to create a futuristic analogue in Prophecy's Heir, I had no intention of writing a sequel and indeed did not format the tale in such a way to easily roll into a contining story line.  But the "what happens next" and "I didn't want it to end" comments that I got prompted a draft for The Kyrid Legacy, and since that worked so well, Prophecy's Challenge followed to complete the Prophecy Trilogy on a Greco-Persian wars theme.  But I'm drawing the line here: no more sequels.  R D Weilburg

Very good topic!

My greatest challenge as an author is my inability to think in terms of singular novels that stand as their own. Ever since I started writing novels back in middle school (all science-fiction or fantasy themed) the stories simply came to me as ideas so huge that they couldn't possibly be books that stood on their own. I currently have a book available on my Amazon page that is a young adult drama that is a stand-alone book and it gets pretty good attention. But it's more difficult for me to sell my current series, "Jade Rose" perhaps by virtue of it being a series. The first book alone is composed of 3 volumes. I'm not sure if that was by design or if it was my subconscious thinking. Some of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy series' are trilogies so perhaps that's how I've grown to see sci-fi and fantasy.

Anyway, I believe a benefit of the trilogy platform is more breathing room for your ideas, room for more characters, and most importantly, room to flesh out your characters as well as your plot. My favorite thing about longer works of fiction, trilogies in particular, is that in my experience, I often return to them. There are so many details and intricacies that I missed on the first read and so many questions I had the first time around that I hadn't realized were answered in earlier chapters. I use the trilogy format to create a sense of intrigue for the reader. I want them to go back and read certain chapters. I want them to see what they could have missed the first time around, or flesh out what they found interesting about a chapter that they didn't quite understand. It's one of the reasons I write. I want my reader to think, re-think, and question their ideas as well as the ideas of the characters. 

The most obvious limitation of the trilogy platform for me is selling the first volume. If you can't get someone interested in reading the first volume of the first book, how can you get them interested enough to purchase the other 6 or so volumes? For some readers, perhaps they're not ready to commit to a story that measures over 700 pages. Perhaps they seek a shorter novel so that they can move on to something else. All understandable reasons. But the trilogy reader, I believe, is one of those niche readers that are difficult to reach without some smart marketing decisions.

Whatever the case, trilogies are what I love to write and I will continue to write them. I just need to learn how to sell them!

Series are harder to sell. And the farther you get into them the harder it gets because people look at the commitment and how many books they'll have to buy. One book at even 4$ is one thing, but when you get five or six they start to balk at the cost sometimes, I think. I know I just released my sixth book and though I have a series I have enough information in each that one can technically pick it up anywhere and be all right, and even so I still can;t find reviewers because no one wants to "start in the middle" but they don;t have the time to commit to reading all six. *sigh* 

i think trilogies work well because there's a clear beginning, middle, end scenario with the books and so also with the story structure. My own series is up to six books, and I've started the seventh and it will go until i am bored with it, until some kind of ending happens where it can;t go on, or until no one buys it anymore, LOL! I am, however, at the end of a three book story arch (books 5, 6 & 7) so it's like a trilogy within the series ;)

A number of replies make the point about stories having a beginning, middle and end. I don't think a trilogy fits that model in the sense of book #1 being the beginning, book #2 the middle and book #3 the end. Most trilogies share a created world and/or characters, and the benefit of the series is to avoid the reader having to familiarise themselves with these common elements.

Personally, I love a series. If I find characters I love, or a world which intrigues me, I don't want the story to ever end e.g. Game of Thrones.

I share the "never wanting a good thing to end" sentiment myself.

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