Trilogy - 3rd time’s a charm
by morgan on Jun.29, 2009, under China Mieville
China, I’m stumped on this trinary question. I haven’t figured out a great one yet, but your post’s heading “third’s a charm” got me thinking. What are some cases where the concluding volume in a trilogy was the strongest of the set?
A few of my picks: Revenge of the Sith & Return of the King (the book; Fellowship would get my vote for best of the movies).
What is fantasy’s fascination with the trilogy? Is it tradition in honor of Tolkien? Proven success from Terry Brooks and his early Shannara trilogy? Does it tap into the 3-act structure of films (beginning, middle & end)? Is it just that authors have a hard time abandoning a fully realized fantastic setting after only one novel’s worth of adventure?
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June 29th, 2009 on 6:00 pm
I believe it was mentioned on a blog somewhere recently (here?) that there are a couple of different ways a series can run. The continued story pretty much forces having to publish book 1 before book 2 and book 2 before book 3.
The continued adventures series should all be standalone books, which might refer to prevous books, but the reader can pick up anywhere. Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes are examples of this.
I think (having written three books in a series, which may have more books) that making use of a great setting and/or main character was the driver behind my writing three books. Will I write a 4th, etc.? Depends on if I can sell 1, 2, and/or 3. I’m now pitching book 2 and prepping book 3 for querying. I think a reader could start anywhere although the MC grows and learns throughout.
June 29th, 2009 on 6:20 pm
Although I agree with Marva that continued adventures are many times standalone it really isn’t that way in Fantasy. There are a couple of examples here and there, but the majority of series in the fantasy genre are either trilogies or long running–such as Terry Goodkind and his 11 book Sword of Truth epic.
I believe that trilogies work best in fantasy because if you’re creating an entire world with histories while at the same time pursuing a deep plot, you kind of just end up with a trilogy. The first book in a trilogy kind of sets the tone, they tell you a little about the universe/world, you get to know the characters and their personal histories and you get the beginnings of a plot; the second book tends to be plot intensive now that the reader has a feel for the setting, you get to know the characters far better, the main conflict of the plot is introduced and you see the beginnings of the end; the third book is the climax, you have an intimate knowledge of the characters and the history and the setting, the plot took shape in the second book, all that’s left is to tie everything up and put a pretty bow on it.
In all other genres, aside from sci-fi, you have the setting pretty much mapped out. The world is Earth, the country is such and such with such and such history, all you really have to do is explain the differences between your history and the actual history. In fantasy, however, the author must create a completely cohesive history and setting before any sort of plot can take place. Sure you have some short story authors out there that can focus on the plot and set it in “a galaxy far far away” but in my opinion for it to be a well balanced story you need that knowledge of where you are. The Lord of the Rings wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if it was written without any substance to his world, Tolkien spent the majority of his time working on his world and that’s part of the reason The Lord of the Rings was such a success. Readers had a fantastic background in which to explore all the while following amazing charters and a plot to die for.
My picks for strongest concluding volumes of a trilogy are:
The Return of the King by Tolkien
Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks
The Chalice by Deborah Chester
Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn
There are others, but those 4 are my absolute winners in each of the series.
As for the mention of Terry Brooks I feel it is my job as a fantasy reader to point out how much he ripped off Tolkien. I know that almost every author since Tolkien has taken his ideas, but I read The Lord of the Rings right before Shannara and honestly it was just a slightly different world with different character names. It’s disappointing to me as a reader to see people pick up Brooks before they’ve read Tolkien because then he gets credit, I feel anyway, he doesn’t deserve. But that’s a debate for another time.
July 6th, 2009 on 1:36 pm
Although the Indiana Jones movies were not envisioned as only a trilogy, I personally thought the third movie (Last Crusade) was the strongest, and I wish they had left it there.
I think works like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings are unique in that they set out from the beginning to tell a single story in three volumes. I think most movies and books that end up having three volumes did so because they just happened to run out of steam at three. So many of them are really just series based on a successful initial work.