Why write a trilogy

Arlo and his friend Indra had gotten separated. Now I needed to show what Indra was up to. But how? There was no elegant way to do it without breaking the rule on POV. So I did it. I broke the rule. My editor noticed — but no one else did. In context, it felt natural to be seeing these events from the point of view of a well-established supporting character. For book three, I stuck with this modified rule.

Doing what it takes is part of writing a trilogy. You need to break rules carefully but unapologetically. I knew the names of the ranks and a few of the requirements, nothing more. When it came to world building, I tried to create only what Arlo could himself encounter. In the case of Arlo Finch, the decision was partly practical; I simply had too many chapters to write. Even over the course of a trilogy, your characters will only see a small corner of their universe.

So focus on that. Make it rich, rewarding and most of all relevant. I knew I had a lot to learn, so I used the excuse of making a documentary podcast called Launch to ask hundreds of naive questions to editors, booksellers and other authors. They taught me about the joys, challenges and frustrations of getting a book published.

When told I was writing a trilogy, authors invariably offered a sympathetic smile along with a gentle shake of the head. Oh, child, they seemed to be saying. Writing any book is a marathon. Writing three books back-to-back is like a race that never ends.

In the morning, Arlo might be investigating a mysterious campsite in Lake of the Moon. In the afternoon, he was back six months earlier in Pine Mountain, meeting his friends for the first time in Valley of Fire. Instead, my experience writing a trilogy had much more in common with the life of TV showrunnner. My friends who write TV have to map out a season, then write the episodes, then oversee all the tweaks and changes — often all at the same time.

The middle book of a trilogy serves as a bridge between the start of the series and the end. For me, the second book felt like the second season of a TV series. And I love second seasons. You also need to consider the story structure and character arcs that run throughout that overarching storyline. This article focuses on how to plan a trilogy of novels, though many of these principles will work just as well for duologies, quintets, or however many books you plan to write.

The real distinction you need to make is between these types of series and serialized fiction. Trilogies are a single story told across many novels. Serialized fiction, on the other hand, is a series of individual stories told across many novels, connected by a common cast of characters and a similar setup.

Sherlock Holmes and the Nancy Drew series are both great examples of serialized fiction. Each book stands on its own, following a common protagonist and cast of characters as they solve a mystery. Outline it as you normally would, while making sure the characterization of your cast is kept the same across the series.

Trilogies are where things get more complicated, as we saw above with Star Wars. This complexity is ultimately what makes planning and outlining your trilogy so important for the success of your series.

At this stage, the key is to approach your outline as if you were planning a standalone novel; basically, as if your trilogy was just one, gigantic book.

Again, you want to think of your trilogy as a single book for now. Your goal at this stage is to incorporate story structure into the scenes you created previously. This will form the plot of your trilogy as a whole, and will give each book the feeling of being connected and meaningful to the larger series. After all, structure is such a vital part of storytelling because it gives your reader a sense of progress and leaves the events of your story with lasting consequences.

You see, the plot points of The Three Act Structure line up perfectly with the three books in a trilogy of novels, giving each book a distinct mood and role in the overarching storyline. With a strong overarching storyline in hand, you can begin splitting your outline into individual novels. Other types of series will be split differently, but this setup can still serve as a rough guideline, especially for six or nine book series.

Duologies are also easy to split, with book one ending after the Midpoint. This is essentially the same process you completed for your overarching storyline, but with some added complexity. Outline those just like you did for the overarching story, but separate them into their own outlines.

Thinking back to Han Solo, while his arc played out over all three movies, he still underwent a significant change in each film. Any character whose arc stretches across the series should have both an overarching arc, alongside smaller book specific arcs that feed into their main journey.

While this seems like a lot of upfront work, the payoff can be huge. After all, the events of later books need to be set up and prepared for in book one. You see, I had already outlined books one and two, and was considering starting on the first draft for book one right then. I was excited to write and felt good about my outline thanks to the ten day process I developed in The Ten Day Outline.

I even had a rough idea of how book three would end thanks to the process above. However, I stopped myself and outlined book three like I knew I should and, in the end, I had to change a major aspect of book one to prepare for the Climax of book three. If I had already started writing, I would be in a major bind when I realized my mistake!

Thanks for your clear comments about putting together a trilogy. I have already written the draft of a long novel. However, I have had problems with too many plot and sub-plot threads, and, as a result, too many characters, all of which slows down the tension and momentum, and also makes it sometimes difficult for the reader to follow.

So I am thinking about dividing the existing novel into a trilogy. But is there any other advice or experience regarding operating on an existing long novel and dividing it up into a trilogy? All the best.

Hi Peter! I represent a self-publishing company, Notion press and this information means a lot to our network of writers, to whom we will be sharing it. We also have similar useful content on our academy page.

Please feel free to check out and get in touch with us. Hey there! In the first book he and his allies are supposed to discover who the culprit is, but they fail in apprehending him and returning the child home. I want getting his brother back to be the main conflict of the series, but is it possible to still have the first book stand on its own with this type of ending? This article was very informative and helped me a lot in looking at what I have written and planned for my series so far, and I really appreciate the time and effort you put into sharing this advice.

Thank you very much! As far as having each book in the trilogy be a standalone, that just means having a lesser plot begun and concluded within each book. Then I have subplots for each book in the trilogy. The main character needs to figure out a way to get them to fight because he desperately needs more soldiers for the war.

And the third book is where they have the final showdown against the Sorcerous. In my first two books there are complete beginning to end plots that are completed within a single book.

You could have a cliffhanger to do with the overarching trilogy plot, but have a subplot completed within each single book but also contribute to further the overarching plot, and the plot for the third book could simply be to wrap up the overarching plot if you want it that way. What they rescue instead has to have its own value, eg, information, and another set of clues, etc.

Would it work if I set up my 2 protagonists in the first book itself, at the end of which one of the protagonists begins to oppose the protagonist and becomes a villain. The second book would venture more about their individual journeys with maybe 1 or 2 confrontations. The third book will give a redemption arc to the villain. Of course this is just a tiny description of my book, and the first book will have its overarching plot that will be concluded in the first book itself. Thank you for asking.

Good luck with it! His works the Utgarda Trilogy and the Thule Trilogy are both beautiful trilogies of adventure novels that provide their readers with a different kind of reading experience — an experience that stirs their imaginations and leave them on the edge of their seats.

The Thule Trilogy by Stieglitz, particularly, is still a work in progress, but it is already making a good impression among the reading public. Joab Stieglitz is evidently one of the few authors in the literary world who can pull off a trilogy. In general, trilogies are not easy to work on. I have one tip to share. Titles play an important role in determining your readership. To hook many readers, each of the book in your trilogy should have an intriguing and compelling title.

Each title should give the readers an idea on what the installment is about and on what they can expect from the story. These titles should hint at pivotal plot developments in each book. The purpose for this is to sustain the interest of the readers in your trilogy. By choosing the right titles, you are somewhat assuring the readers of the consistency of your overall story. The consistency and relevance of your titles as well as your stories are crucial in maintaining your readership.

The more relevant and consistent to the overall theme your titles are, the more readers will be convinced to read your trilogy until the last installment. Although they do not seem significant at first, titles are actually an important consideration in writing a trilogy.

Since her name was Lisa Lisabetta I premised she was the original subject of a pair of portraits — two Lisas painted simultaneously.

There is historical evidence that supports this. As an art history major, that premise was enough to hook me. Lisa and the boy must work together to be visible and acknowledged. Eventually, I self-published in one volume, but it was a huge doorstop of a book that weighed heavily with formidable shipping costs, and being a new author, it was priced too high for anyone to take a risk on an unknown.