Why are there so many Trilogies written?

[Dave Vicks]

Do the Authors need the money?

 

[Stanley Steamboy]

The rule of thirds? Three's a crowd? Third time's the charm?

 

[mffanrodders]

It's the same with movies too. I think studios and publishers like the idea of a franchise/trilogy because there may be a mindset that believe if you have read one, you are likely to buy the three.

I must confess that there is an OCD part of my nature that will finish a trilogy and get all three.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Beginning, middle and end.
It's a very old idea.

Also threes are traditionally special.

 

[KatG]

It's a tradition in fantasy and science fiction and subsequently SFF readers are familiar with it and enjoy them. It dates back to the start of the modern novel, when authors would often do series of 3-5 volumes and subsequently when large novels were serialized in magazines and newspapers or short stories and novellas in magazines were then collected into novels. A duology or a trilogy allowed for a continuity of characters but were also short enough for writers to do easily over a few years.

That tendency continued in the development of modern science fiction and fantasy fiction in the 1930's, with the category market based on magazine publications with material that was then often turned into novels and novel series. C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, Isaac Asimov's collections which then became the Foundation trilogy, etc. In fantasy, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was famously split into three volumes and so fantasy authors tended to propose series in trilogy form, especially in secondary world fantasy. By the 1980's, trilogies were a very common form with things like Robert Silverberg's initial Lord Valentine trilogy, Janet Morris' Kerrion Empire trilogy and David Brin's initial Uplift trilogy.

Longer series started to get more popular in the 1990's, especially in fantasy, but trilogies remain super popular for SFF authors, who often do serial trilogies -- do a first trilogy and then do a second one in the same universe later on. Standalone novels also have a habit of turning into trilogies because authors revisit the universe of the first book they did if they get subsequent ideas for them. Three books takes up a nice solid bit of shelf space in display but doesn't dominate the shelf so booksellers are perfectly happy with them and trilogies let authors build up their fanbases.

 

[AtramentousFlux]

So that there can (apart from the first book) be a better one than the second book ...

 

[Prairie_Dog]

I think with SF&F you have to consider the effort of world-building. Once you have put in the effort to create a setting, returning to it for more than one book allows you to realize a larger and deeper story. I believe that both fans and publishers like the format as well, if the first book is a hit, they want more. The trilogy goes way back in SF&F, forming the core unit of major works. The Lord of the Rings and the Foundation Trilogy come to mind. Then there might be a prequel and/or a “tales” collection of short stories adding into the fictional universe. The Duology and the stand-alone work have become the exception. Although, these days, the open ended series is also becoming fairly popular...

 

[Hobbit]

As my publisher agent friend says, "Because they hope they will sell". Lots of contracts are now done like this, with one book and the option for sequels.

Doesn't always work, of course, there can be diminishing returns on a series, and publishers can drop a series before the final book/s are published - there'a a few series out there not finished, despite a core of fans (not enough, sadly) wanting them to.

The hope is though that interest in the series will grow as they continue.

 

[Stanley Steamboy]

I think with SF&F you have to consider the effort of world-building. Once you have put in the effort to create a setting, returning to it for more than one book allows you to realize a larger and deeper story. I believe that both fans and publishers like the format as well, if the first book is a hit, they want more. The trilogy goes way back in SF&F, forming the core unit of major works. The Lord of the Rings and the Foundation Trilogy come to mind. Then there might be a prequel and/or a “tales” collection of short stories adding into the fictional universe. The Duology and the stand-alone work have become the exception. Although, these days, the open ended series is also becoming fairly popular...

I see this as a vote against trilogies and sequels - the lack of imaginative work necessary to continue in an established world vs. the originality of new creation.

Of course, many follow on works examine such different aspects of the first book to be highly original themselves, but too many works feel like a wrapping-up rather than a new effort.

 

[KatG]

As my publisher agent friend says, "Because they hope they will sell". Lots of contracts are now done like this, with one book and the option for sequels.

Doesn't always work, of course, there can be diminishing returns on a series, and publishers can drop a series before the final book/s are published - there's a few series out there not finished, despite a core of fans (not enough, sadly) wanting them to.

The hope is though that interest in the series will grow as they continue.

And that is one reason that trilogies are also attractive to authors as a format. If you are doing a saga -- one big story spread over several volumes -- you are more likely to get to finish that saga if you can do it in three books than you are in more than three. A publisher is more likely to let a short series build an audience over three books than one big story that takes place over five or seven books but isn't pulling in enough of an audience to work for them. So if you're telling a big story, which is common in both secondary world fantasy and space opera SF, a trilogy is an excellent option. If it does well, you might extend the story or do a second trilogy in that universe. If it does not, you are still likely to get to the end before the publisher pulls the plug on their backing for the series.

Writers doing more episodic series, as is very common in contemporary fantasy where many series are just like non-SFF mystery series, don't necessarily bother with the trilogy format. They simply start with one book, which might have an over-arching plotline that can be continued, but also has an episodic main story with a closed ending. And then they just keep doing them, for as long as the series can build or maintain an audience. Contemporary fantasy series often go ten or fifteen episodic books over years, just like non-SFF mystery series or many television series. Military SF series also often use that format, as do alternate history or time travel SF.

In horror, the goal is to horrify (scare.) It's harder to pull off the same scare in more than one written novel (unlike the slasher movies.) So standalones or sometimes duologies are still really common in horror rather than trilogies or episodic series. Likewise, hard SF stories built around a physics/chemistry/biology concept often don't need a sequel to explore the original idea, so hard SF stories are often still standalones.

So it really just depends on what type of story the author is doing. Trilogies are convenient for many types of stories, but they're not the only format that SFFH authors are into.

 

[Wendy Gamble]

I see this [world-building] as a vote against trilogies and sequels - the lack of imaginative work necessary to continue in an established world vs. the originality of new creation.

Wow, really? As a reader I don't want to have to learn a new universe for each story. Yes, as an author I don't want to make a whole new universe for each novel. I spent years (with the help of co-worldbuilders) world-building, and frankly, it's the characters and story people really want. I knew that as I slogged away at sorting out technologies, ideologies etc., but you still need the setting, too. So at some point I basically said, "enough world-building, it could go on forever, and the story will never get written." So I had to go away from discussion and just think on my own. It took ages to sort through all the ideas, technologies, and figure out what really worked for a cohesive universe. Then it took ages to write a 10 000 word glossary of terms, a ship guide, and a medical compendium to finalize what I was working in. Only then could I focus on what I really love, telling the story and making characters talk. No way am I doing new world-building for each novel! It would be so inefficient, a waste of all those ideas, most of which haven't been fully utilized yet, or even mentioned. I want to live in a world, get to know it, and expand it naturally through extended happenings! Do you really think it takes less imagination to expand a universe as characters explore it through exciting action?

I'm currently editing book two of what I call an "opening trilogy." If that isn't intuitive, it means the main plot that launched them into space will be wrapped by the end of book three. However, there are many threads to continue, and I plan to do so.
Book one was fairly heavy on the setting and technology descriptions - it showed up on a text book sale site!
To get to the point, I tried not to repeat the setting/tech descriptions in book two, and a beta reader reported

"+ Imagination is active in 90% of the scenes."

(re book two)
However, in answer to my "can you read this without book one," he said yes, but the world -building was too dependent on book one. So I will work on fitting more of the setting description in, differently from book one. Yes, that's a challenge with a trilogy unless you assume everyone will start at book one and continue. In this case, I'm thinking some might get caught up by book two more quickly as the adventure is in play, the characters are already adults launched into space. Book could be called more of an origin story.
Anyway, those are thoughts/protests.

 

[Raf]

Maybe the story the author wants to tell is larger than a single novel can contain. I love huge sprawling story lines that can encompass an entire world, or worlds for that matter. With characters that make me want to find out how they differ decades beyond their initial entrance into the story. And what they have accomplished over the years within the original framework of the story

I'm on the back end (1 1/2 books to go) of Allen M. Steele's "Coyote" series and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Even the "Coyote Universe" novels.

Which is rather surprising to me since I usually dislike the " insert novel universe & your characters" practice that so many serial authors end up doing.

I'm all for trilogies and more. As long as the author ends when its time. Too many authors seem to milk that cow beyond where they should. Jordan, Modessit & Hubbard come to mind here.

 

[Stanley Steamboy]

Wow, really? As a reader I don't want to have to learn a new universe for each story. Yes, as an author I don't want to make a whole new universe for each novel. I spent years (with the help of co-worldbuilders) world-building, and frankly, it's the characters and story people really want. I knew that as I slogged away at sorting out technologies, ideologies etc., but you still need the setting, too. So at some point I basically said, "enough world-building, it could go on forever, and the story will never get written." So I had to go away from discussion and just think on my own. It took ages to sort through all the ideas, technologies, and figure out what really worked for a cohesive universe. Then it took ages to write a 10 000 word glossary of terms, a ship guide, and a medical compendium to finalize what I was working in. Only then could I focus on what I really love, telling the story and making characters talk. No way am I doing new world-building for each novel! It would be so inefficient, a waste of all those ideas, most of which haven't been fully utilized yet, or even mentioned. I want to live in a world, get to know it, and expand it naturally through extended happenings! Do you really think it takes less imagination to expand a universe as characters explore it through exciting action?

I'm currently editing book two of what I call an "opening trilogy." If that isn't intuitive, it means the main plot that launched them into space will be wrapped by the end of book three. However, there are many threads to continue, and I plan to do so.
Book one was fairly heavy on the setting and technology descriptions - it showed up on a text book sale site!
To get to the point, I tried not to repeat the setting/tech descriptions in book two, and a beta reader reported (re book two)
However, in answer to my "can you read this without book one," he said yes, but the world -building was too dependent on book one. So I will work on fitting more of the setting description in, differently from book one. Yes, that's a challenge with a trilogy unless you assume everyone will start at book one and continue. In this case, I'm thinking some might get caught up by book two more quickly as the adventure is in play, the characters are already adults launched into space. Book could be called more of an origin story.
Anyway, those are thoughts/protests.

That certainly sounds burdensome. It also sounds unnecessary and largely not how successful authors work:

'If the aliens lay eggs, how does that affect architecture?': sci-fi writers on how they build their worlds

Authors including Nnedi Okorafor, Kim Stanley Robinson and Alastair Reynolds reveal what does, and doesn’t, go into creating their worlds

www.theguardian.com

The world the plot lives in is the plot, just as the characters are the plot. If you create both without reference to what you want them to do in your story, you're writing the book backwards. Characters, settings, technology, etc should serve the story you want to tell and can be created as needed from a much more general template. Sure, Tolkien invented a language first; but he would have done that regardless of whether he made up a story to go with it.


The way you're suggesting going about it is like how a comic book character is created - as a vehicle for endless re-use rather than being the right character or place for the situation described in a tidy and meaningful story. I don't understand making world building decisions that are separate from and not driven by what ends up on the page.

 

[Hobbit]

The way you're suggesting going about it is like how a comic book character is created - as a vehicle for endless re-use rather than being the right character or place for the situation described in a tidy and meaningful story.

Actually Stanley, I think you've made a good point there that I've not considered. I would say that Wendy's process is not unusual these days and that many many books are written today with exactly that point in mind - they are designed for longevity rather than just to tell a tale and move on. Which is how comics work, of course, Netflix, movies... and trilogies.

 

[KatG]

I'm all for trilogies and more. As long as the author ends when its time. Too many authors seem to milk that cow beyond where they should. Jordan, Modessit & Hubbard come to mind here.

"When it's time" is a subjective measurement. And for many stories, especially big sagas, it's not a matter of the author "milking" it. It just goes longer than the author originally thought it would. Jordan, for instance, planned a seven book series and had quite a lot of notes, fragments and other outline material (which was a good thing to help complete the series to his specifications after he died.) But despite his world/history planning, he was an intuitive seat of the pants writer when it came to text (not unusual in writers) and so the very large story he planned got bigger and broader as he went. He probably would have been happy to have it done in seven books, but it turned out not to be how his mind worked with this particular story. So much so that Brandon Sanderson, hired to finish the long saga, had to do it in three books to cover all the story Jordan had developed in outline and text fragments. (Other stories/series Jordan did were shorter.)

The same thing happened with GRRM, who also has extensive world-building and outlining material but is even more a seat of the pantser on narrative and character than Jordan was. He conceived of Song as a duology, sold it as a trilogy, then realized he would need two more books for a quintet to do the whole story he imagined, then realized the time gap in the middle would need to be actually covered for the story to work, ran into a mess trying to do that middle gap book, split it laterally and is now consequently about 3/4 through doing Book 6 and we're all crossing our fingers. That's not a milking issue, it's an author brain process issue that is partly due to how extensive and broad the saga series is -- one of the main things that fans like about the series.

Asimov had an enormous organizational system for the Foundation stories that he kept on a bulletin board in his office. Robert J. Sawyer wrote his popular Far-Seer series without any outline at all or even a plot. He instead wrote scenes completely by the pants and then figured out what the text bits that would connect the scenes would be afterwards. Most SFF authors (and other types of authors as well) use a mix of extensive outlining/world-building with seat of the pants character and textual creation. Wendy's situation is not at all unusual. She figured out by trial and error what she needed in order for her brain to be able to work out the main story ideas she wanted, which then gives her areas/setting for other story ideas she can later pursue. Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, for instance, are connected but often stand separately. It worked for what he was doing.

Chuck Wendig wrote a huge plague apocalyptic science fiction story, Wanderers, that had some room for more but was originally conceived and planned as a standalone. But while he was writing/revising it, he came up with ideas for how a sequel could be effectively developed, so he's doing a sequel. Though Wanderers became a bestseller (and disturbingly prescient,) he's not doing it to milk the book -- he has four other book projects coming out over the next couple of years. He just had an idea that worked for him.

It also often happens that an author may plan a larger series and then decide they are done with it early. They lose interest in that world, set of characters, plot ideas before their fans may and move on to another project. Even more commonly, they may drop a book or series for years, decades even, and then have an idea and come back and write some more. Take a look at numerous older SFFH series -- you often find a time gap in the middle. Ellen Kushner very famously wrote Swordspoint, published in 1987. She didn't write a sequel, The Fall of Kings, until 2002 with a co-author and then wrote a third one, The Privilege of the Sword for 2006. Steven Boyett wrote the cult classic post-apoc fantasy Ariel in 1983. Over two decades later he wrote a bestselling sequel, Elegy Beach, published in 2009. Glen Cook has outline plans for two more Black Company novels, the last of which so far was published in 2000, and wrote an eighth book in his Dread Empire series in 2012 after the last one published in 1988. He did do that in part for the reissuing of the Dread Empire series but also because he had Dread Empire ideas he hadn't gotten around to yet. Most SFF authors have a mix of series of various lengths and standalone novels, with possibly some short story collections as well.

And that's the situation in written fiction by and large. People assume it's all marketing decisions from on high but it very seldom is. While publishers may encourage authors to continue with a bestselling series or may bail out of a series that the author wants to continue, the shape/format of most series comes from what the authors found as the way their stories worked for them to write. Fiction authors are really bad at estimating how long it's going to take them to do a story, how many books they'll do in a series, whether they'll ever write in a universe they created again or not, how many series they can juggle for the prolific authors, etc. The way they write one series may not be the way that they write another series or a standalone novel. The amount of research they'll do will vary. And life stuff can make it harder or easier for a fiction writer to write a project.

A trilogy provides a model and it is a three act model, one of the ones we're most familiar with in creating -- and reading or watching -- stories. So author brains naturally turn to it and it's been particularly useful in SFF (not as popular in other categories of stories.) But author brains are just as likely to eschew the trilogy format and do something else.

 

[Stanley Steamboy]

Actually Stanley, I think you've made a good point there that I've not considered. I would say that Wendy's process is not unusual these days and that many many books are written today with exactly that point in mind - they are designed for longevity rather than just to tell a tale and move on. Which is how comics work, of course, Netflix, movies... and trilogies.

It sure seems burdensome, though. I'm reminded of a couple learning to cook by watching cooking shows who gave up because it took such a long time to measure out all the ingredients into little bowls, first.

 

[Wendy Gamble]

It sure seems burdensome, though. I'm reminded of a couple learning to cook by watching cooking shows who gave up because it took such a long time to measure out all the ingredients into little bowls, first.

Actually, having the world fleshed out in handy guides with indexes lifts the world-building burden and frees me up. That's why I was so relieved to have that part done. The world-building itself was fun because it was a hobby for a group of people who loved to pitch in ideas and watch me write it into something. I don't think I want to go there again, though, to the same extent, anyway. I'm really enjoying having that done and living in and expanding the universe. I might give a detailed response later to your long post.

 

[Hobbit]

Actually, having the world fleshed out in handy guides with indexes lifts the world-building burden and frees me up.

Which is, I guess why writers sometimes like shared universes... or write fan fiction! They have less to worry about as the worldbuilding's done and can therefore concentrate on the story they want to tell. Why would you need to explain the purpose of a mug when it's already there?

But I think I get your point, Stanley. For some writers and readers the joy is in discovering something new and different that the author has clearly spent time on developing themselves and testing to extremes, or to tell a tale in an unusual situation.... for others less so.

A a reader... I like both. It's what keeps me entertained, amused and even makes me think.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Wheel of Time would work better edited down to five because it's a serial, not a series. I don't mind if a series has 40 books, but Wheel of Time is far too many for a serial, with many books not really even being complete stories.

There is a tension between the writer, fans and publisher wanting more of the same and what is really sensible. The Chalet School series is 61 or 62 books as well as shorts in magazines. It's fine if you want that sort odd School story. Almost like a soap. In fact many of the books are actually short stories with over arching plots, often the same plot of girl is bad, girl is sick or something happens to her and girl reforms. But it works for what it is.
Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew deliberate long series with varying writers commissioned by the publisher.
Leslie Charteris commissioned ghost writers to continue The Saint Series.
Dune was quite good, but the sequels never matched the original.
The first four to six Pern books are brilliant and the fans wanted more. Anne happily obliged.
Ursula Le Guin wrote the Earthsea Trilogy and then much later she wanted more.
Asimov wrote serialised stories later collected as the Foundation Trilogy. Very much later, perhaps after he'd written some detective short stories and maybe over a decade after writing any SF, he wrote more Foundation stories, much bigger books at the insistence of the publisher. He also then weirdly connected the Robot stories to the Foundation stories. Caves of Steel was brilliant. But in fact most of the Robot stories the supposed Three Laws are really a thing to create almost the locked room style of detective story.

 

[mffanrodders]

Perhaps the popularity of the trilogy is simply a beginning, a middle and an end?