Does it have to be a trilogy?

One of the writers on the VISION list asked 'Does it have to be a trilogy?' Good question.

How long is a piece of string? A book need to be as long as it needs to be to tell the story. Having said that, single title books are hard to sell. And, from a writer's point of view, they are harder to write. Think of all that work building the world and its different societies, then only using it once in one book.

Besides, readers like to come back to a familiar world. It's like going on a holiday to a destination that is an old favourite. A reader emailed asking if she could buy the sequel to the Last T'En trilogy because ... 'I feel like the characters are my friends. I want to know what happens to them.' This is why fantasy book series run to 10 books or more.

Which brings us back to the question, should you write a trilogy or could it be a duology?

Some stories just work better as a duology. They have a natural conclusion. That raises the question of word length. Rhonda Roberts was saying her Gladiatrix comes in at 160K. The individual books of Nicole Murphy's new series, 'The Dream of Asaerlai' come in at around 110K. The books of Simon Green's Nightside series are very short, around 200 pages printed. But they are tight and eminently readable because each book is self contained. I think he's up to book number 10 now and he keeps going back to the world he created, revisiting characters, making them grow and evolve, bringing in new characters.

I find, if I'm writing away and I get to about 600 pages (150K) and the story still hasn't reached a natural conclusion, I'll look for a place where I can cut it in half and expand it to two books of 100K each. Since this is a first draft, I know I'll be expanding the book as I add flavour and colour to the narrative, so I know it is going to grow.

One of the other writers on the list commented that they hate buying a trilogy when they have to wait for the other books. It means they have to wait years sometimes, and then re-read the earlier books. I can sympathise, having been in the same spot. This is why I'm glad Solaris is bringing out my three King Rolen's Kin books, a month apart. No waiting.

But it does mean that three years of work gets released in 3 months. This is another question that was raised on the VISION list. Should a writer complete the second book of a trilogy before sending out the first and moving on to another project? If I hadn't written all three KRK books, they would be coming out 6 months to a one year apart.

As you might have gathered from the description of my writing practice, my books tend to grow, so I will often have book two written in draft form, while I'm polishing book one. A writer with a great track record can sell on the strength of a proposal. A writer with a track record can sell on the strength of a proposal and three chapters. A new writer can sell on the strength of the first book and the outline of the second.

When you do sell, you'll find yourself writing to a deadline, trying to edit book one, clean up book two and plan book three, all at the same time. And sometimes it is easier to complete book three before cleaning up book two because things will happen in book three that need to be seeded into book two.

So, do you wait until all three books of a trilogy are out, before buying the first one? Does it annoy you when a trilogy's individual books don't have conclusions? What about series that run on for ever without a conclusion? Would you keep reading anyway, because you find the characters fascinating?

Update on Book Prize

Doing give-aways on Blogs is new to us so we're learning as we go along. Tehani jumped in with the right answer to Rhonda's question within 15 minutes of the post going up. Congratulations to Tehani, Rhonda is sending her a signed copy of her book.

To make it fair for everyone else, Rhonda has generously offered another copy of her book and another chance for someone to win it. This time send your answer to me at

rowena@corydaniells.com


All the right answers will go into a draw and Rhonda will send the winner a copy of her book.

So here's the question and this time it is one SF movie buffs will be able to answer.

Q. In which recent SF movie was Britain a police state?

Getting my first book published, Rhonda Roberts

Rowena, here. For an unpublished writer it is so hard to get your work in front of an editor. The manuscript can be really good, but if you can't get past the 'gate keeper' you'll never sell the book.

Back in 2006 while I was on the Fantastic Queensland committee, I organised a Pitching Opportunity for Spec Fic writers to pitch their books to Stephanie Smith from Harper Collins.

Marianne de Pierres, Louise Cusack and Kim Wilkins kindly agreed to help select the 10 lucky aspiring writers and run a workshop on how to pitch. Rhonda Roberts was one of these writers. Here's her story ...
(Look out for the Give Away question. We have a copy of Gladiatrix for one lucky blog reader).

Getting published seemed like a long shot but I read everything I could find and joined the NSW Writer’s Centre in Sydney. The Centre was invaluable. Nothing like listening to writers, publishers and agents talk about their industry and being able to ask questions.

Inspired I planned my series, honed the first book (for the tenth time), started the second and sent out query packages to publishers and agents.

I had no success until I did one of Terry Dowling’s workshops. He said I had to find a way to get my manuscript past the slush pile - the manuscripts that never make it to the editor’s desk.

So I looked for competitions to enter and came across one with the prize being an opportunity to pitch to a publisher at that year’s National SF Convention. It was organised and judged by Rowena Cory Daniells, Marianne de Pierres, Louise Cusack and Kim Wilkins. To my surprise I won a place with nine others.

Rowena and Kim ran a workshop to prepare us for the pitch, which was wonderful. They reminded us to be extremely concise in our presentation – we only had a few minutes to make an impression.

At mine the publisher was very kind but non-committal and especially interested to know how far I was along with the rest of the series.

Later she sent me an encouraging email… She liked my work but it wasn’t the right length so I could resubmit when I’d expanded the draft by a quarter.

I resubmitted and while I was waiting worked on the second book. When the call came I expected the worst – but instead HarperCollins bought the first three books in my Timestalker series. The first one, Gladiatrix, came out in May 2009.

Rhonda's bio:

I have a Ph.D and worked as an academic specialising in the sociology of knowledge. I trained in Aikido in Japan and now Tai Chi near my home in the Illawara.

And Rhonda is a fan of SF Comedy so the Give Away question is:

In what SF comedy series does the Big Giant Head appear and who played him?