UltimaBahamut93
Dreamer
When you began working on your books and planning out the plot, how did you decide if you would make a single, duology, or trilogy? Did you know from the start or did you change your mind as you progressed?
I started knowing there'd be 3 books but a couple of times through the process I have wondered if those 3 could all be published within 1 large book.When you began working on your books and planning out the plot, how did you decide if you would make a single, duology, or trilogy? Did you know from the start or did you change your mind as you progressed?
on my reading list. might give a 'Top Scribe' type judgment.We're currently working on Book 3 of a very long running series (something like 20 books planned plus a second series set afterwards). Funny story - we thought this was initially going to be a stand-alone. Then the development work spawned a second book, which turned into the first book, Faerie Rising. Then Book 1 became Book 2, Ties of Blood and Bone.
Then it kind of exploded.
Short stories, novellas and novels are structured differently. You learn how to write novels by writing novels, not shorts.If your just starting out, doing short stories and novellas gives a basic idea of what to work with. Once you mastered that you can finally decide whether or not a book series makes sense. If you want a self contained story, one book is fine. If you want a continuing storyline, a book series makes sense. I'd liked doing short projects as I tend to grow ver bored when I work on something too long.
I should say knowing how long your story is going to be from the moment you've thought of it would have to be almost intuitive. It depends what it's about. Also a series with a continuing story, or even 'episodic continuing' as someone said before, requires a lot of plot structuring before you can even get started. J.K Rowling for example spent five years plotting out Harry Potter before writing the first novel.
I chose to make mine a trilogy because it's a 'quest for the macguffin' style story in which there are four identical macguffins, so each book could be about the pursuit of one at a time. It's taken me years to plot it out too, there's so much to think about in advance. There were always going to be three, but I've another project that'll definitely be a one off, and another that will be better as a collection of shorts