WRITING Trilogies - Plotting your way to success (Part Two)
In Part two of this three-part series, trilogy writer David Barker
looks at how a three-book series relates to traditional story structures,
discusses his own experiences and considers what works well for this form and
what works less well.
We’ve probably all heard of the three-act structure for
stories, as espoused by Syd Field in his 1979 classic on screenwriting. A story
has a set-up, followed by confrontation and finally resolution. Not every story
has to follow this template, but it is perhaps the most common form used. It
just feels natural for my own writing; each of my London Falling stories is
divided into three parts.
What about the structure of a trilogy? How does that work? In a sense, it’s just the same. You could view a trilogy as an extra-long story where the author gets to indulge themselves with a huge word count instead of the limits modern attention spans place on book length. The three acts of the story just happen to be three separate books. But there are some subtle differences.
First, there is the length of the three acts.
Traditionally, the middle act of a story is much longer than the first or third
act (often twice as long). But with a trilogy, each book needs to be roughly
the same length. More importantly, each part of a trilogy needs to have some
sort of resolution so the reader feels they’ve been rewarded for reaching the
end of the book. There’s nothing that frustrates me more as a reader than
getting to the end of the final chapter and finding a ‘to be continued’
statement.
So how do you write a self-contained story that is also part
of a bigger picture? By making sure there is an over-arching plot to the three
stories. And this does require thinking ahead and plotting things out (sorry,
Pantsers). The villain of the trilogy might have some long-winded scheme that
only gradually becomes apparent as the protagonist pieces evidence together in
each story. Perhaps the hero needs to collect certain artefacts or achieve
certain goals before they can confront the villain (a structure that will be
very familiar to the video gamers out there). Maybe the villain has been hiding
in the shadows during books one and two – while their minions toy with the
heroes – and only becomes apparent in book three. Mwah-ha-hah!
It can help to add a new character or two to the series with
each release, to keep the reader’s experience fresh. And come up with new forms
of peril for the heroes to overcome. Readers want familiarity, not repetition.
And don’t forget, books two and three in a trilogy will need to give readers a
few pointed reminders of what happened earlier in the series since there may
have been 12 months between release dates. Just beware of overdoing it and
boring them.
When an author knows what will happen in advance, they can
seed elements of the overall arc into each part of the story. Readers get a
kick out of hunting for such clues and looking back at past scenes when secrets
were subtly revealed. It’s been fun hiding these within the early parts of the
London Falling series. One of the controversial scenes in Blue Gold (book one
of my Gaia trilogy) sowed the seeds for a crucial element of the plot in Rose Gold (book two).
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Aiming for a structure like this does place emphasis on the
final book in the series. It has to tie up all the loose ends while delivering
a suitably climatic finish to the trilogy (hopefully outdoing the climax in
books one and two). I’ve certainly felt some pressure to get book three in the
London Falling series just right. We’ll see whether readers think I’ve achieved
that next year…
A trilogy allows for more character development (both hero and villain) than in a standalone book. All stories should invoke some change (hopefully growth) in the protagonist by the end. But a multi-book series allows for that development to happen over an extended period of time. In the original Star Wars trilogy we see Luke Skywalker gaining control over his Jedi powers, for example. In the Land of Roar trilogy, Jenny McLachlan loved exploring the reasons for Crowky’s villainy – her favourite scene occurs in book three, involving a game of chess between Crowky and hero Arthur. No spoilers as to why that scene is important – you’ll just have to read it to find out!
Another advantage of writing a trilogy is avoidance of the
awkward book two syndrome that plagues some debut authors. It’s
automatically avoided with a trilogy because you’ve already planned out the
second book. And you can’t afford to procrastinate because there’s probably a
deadline looming over you! (some people thrive on deadlines, others dread
them…)
Most of these attributes can apply to any multi-book series, of course, but for me there is something special about achieving all this within three books. It accomplishes more than a single story can manage but doesn’t require the reader to invest many years (and a lot of money) waiting for an uncertain, distant ending.
My final piece of advice for those attempting a trilogy is
to write a first draft of book two before finalising book one in case something
unexpected occurs in book two that needs to be seeded in book one, or that
requires a tweak to the plot of the first story. (And similarly write a draft
of book three before finalising book two.) Good luck!
Next time, I’ll wrap up these
articles by looking at how pre-published authors might pitch a trilogy and the
commercial aspects of trilogies in the current publishing climate. See you
then!
*Header Image: Tita Berredo & Ell Rose
*Other images courtesy of my bookshelf
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David Barker has been writing stories for over 10 years, after many years working as an economist. A graduate of the Faber Academy, he has written adventure novels for adults (The Gaia trilogy, Bloodhound Books) and for children (the London Falling series, Tiny Tree). He has also written scripts for pantomimes (published through Lazy Bee Scripts) and has two short stories included in anthologies.
You can find more about David and his writing on his website, on X (Twitter), Facebook or Instagram.
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