The length of string

I have noticed a little trend when talking to people about The Vasini Chronicles – there seems to be an assumption that it will be a trilogy.

It’s understandable, in someways. People tend to like things that come in threes, it seems to fit an assumed natural order to the world. And given all the trilogies out there, it does seem like we’ve become programmed to think of ongoing stories in terms of three installments (although this ignores how many novel and film series don’t follow that format).

So how long will The Vasini Chronicles be?

As long as it needs to be to tell the story, which looks likely to be six novels.

I say it “looks likely to be six novels” to give myself a little leeway should I get midway through and discover six novels is too few (or, possibly, too many).

Early on when I was developing the ideas for Vasini, I realised that there would be scope for more stories than just The Silver Mask. As I worked on The Silver Mask it became apparent that there was an end destination for the story of Doctors Fox and Reid, a natural outcome for what had developed out of those initial ideas and the events that started in the first novel. The question, though, was how many steps (novels) would it take to reach that natural outcome? I thought four, then five. After some actual planning, I realised it was more likely six. I doubt it will stretch to seven, unless there’s some factor I haven’t considered that will expand this particular story.

Alongside these six novels will sit what, for now, I’m going to term The Tales from Vasini, a companion series of short stories and novellas that will explore parts of Vasini outside of the story of Fox and Reid. The first should be out later this year.

So that’s the plan. Like a piece of string, it will be twice the distance from the middle to one end, but it won’t be a trilogy. It won’t necessarily appear quickly, but hopefully it will appear regularly.