4 Part Series?

[Androxine Vortex]

Usually books in a series are part of a trilogy. I guess this has just become a norm. My series was actually much longer but I shortened it to just 4 novels. Of course this is just hypothetical and speculation, but do you believe that a tetralogy would be fine? I know (obviously) there are many novels out there that are part of a larger series than just four but usually novels today range from just between 1-3 (typically) I really don't see a way for me to shorten it any more.

And this is kind of a side question, but do you believe that the first book in a series should be generally short. I can understand that a huge seven hundred page novel might "intimidate" some readers. They might feel that that is too much and it's only one book into the series. I'm just trying to get a feel of how long my first part novel should be. I know that it should "be as long as it takes to tell the story" but technically I could write a 100,000 page novel just to tell any story really.

 

[Dan Latham]

A 700-hundred page novel would certainly intimidate me. I would need some sort of personal investment in the story to pick up a book that size.

That said, I think the first book in a series should be shorter in order to attract prospective readers.

A tetralogy is just as valid as a trilogy. In fact, in the current mania for trilogies, a four-part series might seem exotic and intriguing.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

A 700-hundred page novel would certainly intimidate me. I would need some sort of personal investment in the story to pick up a book that size.

I'm curious what you mean by personal investment. Personal recommendation from a friend? It's from an author you've read before and liked? Or do you mean you'd have to read a little of it and really like it? Etc. I'm trying to boil down the general problem of Finding Enjoyable Books because it seems like something that people talk in circles about.

 

[Griffin]

I think I know what Latham means. He's not saying that long book would not be enjoyable. Dante's "Divine Comedy" is a doozy, but that doesn't mean it's not an enjoyable read. But say you saw a copy of it sitting on the bookshelf. Let's also say that you have never heard of the work or its author. Would you pick up such a large piece of literature and read it? You might, but most people would not. Personally, I would not pick up a 700 page novel if I have never heard of the author or the general series.

Back to the original question, a four part series is solid. A lot of pressure exists to condense series size for keeping the readers' attentions (or so they say.) But look at the Harry Potter's series. It went way and beyond three books. However, the ideal to keep the series to a minimum exists for a reason. Around Book 7, I believe, Rowling lost interest in the Harry Potter series and wanted to do something different. The longer the book series, the higher your interest level must be to complete it. Keep that in mind. Best of luck to you.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I think I know what Latham means. He's not saying that long book would not be enjoyable. Dante's "Divine Comedy" is a doozy, but that doesn't mean it's not an enjoyable read. But say you saw a copy of it sitting on the bookshelf. Let's also say that you have never heard of the work or its author. Would you pick up such a large piece of literature and read it? You might, but most people would not. Personally, I would not pick up a 700 page novel if I have never heard of the author or the general series.

At this point in my life I'd never pick up a book at random just to see if it's any good, if it was some author or book I'd never heard of. I wouldn't expect anyone to pick up my book at random, either; I would hope that I could convince enough people to read it, and that it's good enough, that some of the readers will then recommend it to other people.

The trick is finding the audience for your work and convincing them that they should give it a try.

 

[Sheilawisz]

I believe firmly that we should write our stories as long as they need to be, not shorter and also not longer than it's really necessary to tell the story =)

Tetralogies are not very common, but they seem like a good idea to me, why not?

My second Fantasy series is actually a pentalogy composed by five short novels, all of them between 36k and 47k words long... Together they would form a huge and intimidating book, but as five separate novels they are much easier to read and to grasp.

The first book of a Fantasy series should be, in my opinion, not too long and also not the deepest of your story... what is really important for a first book, is that you cause your readers to fall in love with your world!!

 

[Griffin]

At this point in my life I'd never pick up a book at random just to see if it's any good, if it was some author or book I'd never heard of. I wouldn't expect anyone to pick up my book at random, either; I would hope that I could convince enough people to read it, and that it's good enough, that some of the readers will then recommend it to other people.

The trick is finding the audience for your work and convincing them that they should give it a try.

And this may be where advertising takes its stand. Many great novels have a hard time gaining a reputation based on readers' recommendations alone. Some are able to do so. A lot cannot. For example, I watch a channel that specializes in detective shows and shows about murder and crime. I have seen commercials advertising detective novels/authors. Because the audience is already into detective entertainment, a huge part will be interested in the novel.

It also depends on the genre and what's popular. Of course, popularity is a fickle beast and cannot be counted on majority of the time.

 

[FireBird]

As sad as I am to say this and as much as I dislike the books, Eragon was a 4 part series of books and it sold exteremely well. The first book was also much shorter than the other three. I think no matter how many books you have in a series as long as your first book does well you should be ok.

I honestly don't care how long a book is as long as it keeps my interest all the way through. Saying that, when your books start getting over 500 pages it gets more and more difficult to keep the readers interest throughout so many pages.

 

[Zero Angel]

I love quadrilogies. I am planning my main saga to be either four trilogies or four quadrilogies (dodecailogy or quadecailogy? ...OK, now I am just making up words).

I don't think there is any good reason to have a trilogy unless your WIP takes that many major story arcs to complete. After becoming invested in a series, most fans agree that the more there is the better I believe (so long as it is done well obviously! Let's not drag it out just to drag it out!).

Yes, the first book needs to be shorter unless you're a superstar I am sad to say. Fantasy and Sci-fi gets a little bit of a break from the major publishers, but not as much as we might like. Every figure I've ever seen from a first-time author being published at a major firm asks for around 100K word count. The fantasy genre might get you an extra 20K.

Now, I self-published so I said screw the recommended--I am writing the story I want to write. My first in the series clocked in at about 190-200K (I can't remember exactly -_-).

Also bear in mind that even if you are self-publishing you might want to be wary of large word counts because the more words the more paper you use and the more expensive it will be to produce a hard copy of your book (and to a lesser extent, the more expensive the download fee will be from Amazon / B&N / etc).

 

[BWFoster78]

Four seemed to do okay for Twilight.

A 700-hundred page novel would certainly intimidate me. I would need some sort of personal investment in the story to pick up a book that size.

I'm the exact opposite. I like long books. Give me Jordan's and Goodkind's 1000+ page epics any day.

Write your book as long as you think it needs to be and in as many volumes as it needs to be. If the writing is good enough, it doesn't really matter.

 

[Dan Latham]

I'm curious what you mean by personal investment. Personal recommendation from a friend? It's from an author you've read before and liked? Or do you mean you'd have to read a little of it and really like it? Etc. I'm trying to boil down the general problem of Finding Enjoyable Books because it seems like something that people talk in circles about.

All of the above. For a very long book, a personal recommendation would probably be necessary if I am unfamiliar with the author.

Personal investment might also refer to my time. If I read previous installments in a series, I might be inclined to read the 700 page conclusion for the sense of completion even if there are other books vying for my attention.

FEB(Finding Enjoyable Books) is a great acronym.

 

[Lorna]

It's tough to decide how long your novels are going to be or how to divide them until you've done some serious drafting. When I drafted through the whole course of my story, at one point I thought it might be 24 short books (!). Then I thought I'd be looking at six, then after cutting down to the core events decided on a trilogy.

Personally, I favour numbers with that divide into 3. Possibly due to my affinity with the Celts. So my book's a trilogy and it's got 3 parts. But that's a personal preference, it doesn't apply to what I buy.

I've seen series in sets of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and more. The number of books in a series doesn't affect whether I buy one.

One of my favourite quartets is Ursula Leguin's Earthsea Quarter

At present I'm favouring reading shorter novels but if something long that looked outstanding enough to hold my attention all the way through appeared I'd give it a go.

 

[JCFarnham]

There is a very, very good reason that trilogies exist and are so popular. It fits perfectly into the hollywood/three act formula. If you've never heard of it, I suggest you go and research it. You'll see what I mean

Anyway it's by far the neatest way to split a huge tale.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

Thank you everyone for your responses. As I have said before, my original outline had me thinking that it would be around eight novels long! I decided to cut a lot out, shorten, etc. So now I just have my four left. I'm just curious to see how the market will take to it. It might throw them off of their "trilogy groove." Joking aside, I honestly don't think it will be a problem. I'm pretty sure Harry Potter fans weren't complaining about the length of the series.

 

[Steerpike]

I buy random books from people I've never heard of all the time. CDs too. I am more likely to buy a longer book, I suppose. Subconsciously it probably feels like I'm getting a better value. I'll buy a very short book if it really looks good, but if it comes down to a short book versus a long book, and both look intriguing, and there are no other factors to tip the scale, I'll take the longer one.

I don't see any reason four books can't work just as well as three. These days, I see a lot of series that run much longer than three.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I buy random books from people I've never heard of all the time. CDs too. I am more likely to buy a longer book, I suppose. Subconsciously it probably feels like I'm getting a better value. I'll buy a very short book if it really looks good, but if it comes down to a short book versus a long book, and both look intriguing, and there are no other factors to tip the scale, I'll take the longer one.

I don't see any reason four books can't work just as well as three. These days, I see a lot of series that run much longer than three.

I'm not letting Mindfire run longer than three volumes. Mostly because that's how long it'll take to tell the story, and I don't see any reason to try to prolong it.

I do think that the longer a series runs, the more likely it is that the author's going to lose focus (or even just lose interest). I don't know that I'd ever want to commit myself to a super-long series, mainly because I'm afraid I'd get bored of writing it.

 

[Steerpike]

I do think that the longer a series runs, the more likely it is that the author's going to lose focus (or even just lose interest). I don't know that I'd ever want to commit myself to a super-long series, mainly because I'm afraid I'd get bored of writing it.

Yes. And many of the longer series I'm thinking of are Dresden Files types of work, where each novel is more or less a stand alone novel, though there are over-arching story lines that tie them together. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of Erikson, who has to have to longest series in terms of sheer words.

 

[Zero Angel]

I do think that the longer a series runs, the more likely it is that the author's going to lose focus (or even just lose interest). I don't know that I'd ever want to commit myself to a super-long series, mainly because I'm afraid I'd get bored of writing it.

That's what outlines are for! =)

Here's mine (VERY SIMPLIFIED TO AVOID SPOILERS):

Trilogy I: Existence of demons and dragons verified and establishment/development of the MCs to become the heroes they need to be

Trilogy II: Development and defense of the military forces/organizations/alliance that the heroes will lead.

Trilogy III: Harbingers of the apocalypse, build-up to the end

Trilogy IV: The end of the world as we know it

Each novel has some very clear objectives that are accomplished with an eye towards development for the series as well as their self-contained storyline. Each trilogy covers a major story arc with major developments made with an eye towards the inevitable end. The series as a whole develops from a clear beginning to a definite end.

At this point, some (or all) of the trilogies may develop into quadrilogies until I hammer out the details.

 

[JonSnow]

All of the above. For a very long book, a personal recommendation would probably be necessary if I am unfamiliar with the author.

Personal investment might also refer to my time. If I read previous installments in a series, I might be inclined to read the 700 page conclusion for the sense of completion even if there are other books vying for my attention.

FEB(Finding Enjoyable Books) is a great acronym.

Personally, I'm a fan of long books. But for most readers, I agree with Dan Latham here. If you're an unknown author, I'd stick to the 400-450 page range on your first book. If you have enough material for four 700 page books, why not make them shorter and just write a series of five? If you've got that much material, surely you can find multiple places to end each book properly. Once you have an audience, you can start making them longer if you want.

 

[Christopher Wright]

People who are fans of epic fantasies generally won't blink at the length of a book. That's why they put "Epic" in the title. But that is a very specific market within fantasy.

I'm a serial writer, so I don't think in terms of trilogies or whatnot, mostly I think in terms of "do I have any more stories to tell in this world?" and if the answer is "yes" I create another. And if not I move on. But that also means I want each individual story told to have a resolved ending for at least one important plot point, as well as other important story elements that can be continued.