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Ideal number of books for a series?
A trilogy feels good for an author because it offers them plenty of scope for their characters without sounding too much like an unattainable slog to work on.It might be similar for readers as well actually.
Every rule can be broken, but I do think there are "sweet spots" for stuff like this.Novels seem to work best between 70,000 and 150,000 words. Much less than that and there isn't much time for characters to develop. Much longer and it can feel bloated. It varies by genre, though. Fantasy and historical fiction can be longer.
Movies used to come in around the 90 minute mark. Now 2 hours plus seems to be more normal. But there seems to be an upper limit around 3 and a bit hours - possibly related to the capacity of the human bladder.
Television programmes seem to work at either 30 minutes or 1 hour.
A play or concert generally comes in around 3-4 hours (with an interval).
A trilogy is possibly one of the sweet spots for book series. As you say, it seems to strike a good balance between enough time to develop stories and not so much that it feels like a prison sentence.
I suppose it also depends on whether you are enjoying the series or not. I have read some long book series and left feeling that I wanted more. On the other hand, some series have turned me off because it just seemed like more of the same. I may be the only person who gave up on Harry Potter after two books...
Did any one ever get to the end of Wheel of Time?That's what, 14 books?
Will you missed book 3 in the harry Potter series which seems to be widely accepted as the best of the set. I think so anyway, and i know a lot who agree with me there.
Look at the astonishing Sir Terry. How many in the discworld collection now? If it wasn't for the Embuggerance, I bet he would have hit 3 figures.
Will wrote: "Did any one ever get to the end of Wheel of Time?That's what, 14 books?
Will you missed book 3 in the harry Potter series which seems to be widely accepted as the best of the set. I think so an..."
Actually Discworld might be the one exceptions where a long series has kept fresh throughout but I think thats because he used a lot of different characters plus each book wasn't overly long.
Would be interested to hear what readers of Game of Thrones think as that in a way employs a similiar technique to Pratchett in that it weaves together many different stories and each book has certain character focuses. (I haven't read them as daunted by the length!)
I find that 20+ books about the same character gets a bit much.
Discworld is kind of creaking under its own weight. The later books are not a patch on the earlier ones, and the sheer number of books in the series is seen as a barrier to entry for many.
fair enough. I must admit its a few years since I read a discworld novel but I'd gotten into the 20+ book i think before I moved on
Rob, part of the difference is that Pratchett can write, and GRRM...can't...
I'm sometimes daunted by too many books in a series. I am pulled away by the need to read other things. To try someone else. Discworld has held me from the early days so I've not found it hard to keep up but I wouldn't (at my time of life) start a long series.
Will - I might dig out the third Harry Potter and try again. My problem with the first two was that they seemed quite samey. A school year where Harry excels whilst we try to work out who the real bad guy is, culminating in Harry having an end of level boss fight with someone who wasn't yet he who should not be named.Somehow I couldn't face five different iterations of that same plot over and over again. At least that's how it seemed part way through book two, which is where I lost the will to live and switched to His Dark Materials instead.
Rob wrote: "fair enough. I must admit its a few years since I read a discworld novel but I'd gotten into the 20+ book i think before I moved on"A mate of mine has just read all the Disc world books back to back.
He even enjoyed Raising Steam
But they are really a set of books set in the same world, there are 'trilogies' within them
I enjoyed raising steam! I didn't think there was any question about that!They do fall into groups, though. The witches, the watch, etc. Love 'em all. It's the sense of humour and gentle wisdom that permeates his writing.
I think the 3rd Harry Potter is when JK really starts laying down the ground work for the final book as you have gotten to know the characters in the first 2 so there is less development needed. I know what you mean about them being samey but I love them, the 3rd is definitely one of the best. I think the 5th is my least favourite, when Harry starts trying to be all misunderstood and full of teenage angst, it's realistic I guess but still flaming annoying. I think 3 or 4 books for a series is perfect, I love GoT but the last book to be released disappointed me (were there any original characters left?) and I think it's going to be dragged on too long. The huge gaps between each book being released doesn't help either, if the TV series over takes the books I probably won't bother reading them, actually I probably won't bother reading the books either way.
Crime books that go on and on and on start to bore me as well but I think they can get away with more in a series.
Oh and since movies were mentioned. I hate films being over 2 hours long and the number of adverts they show at the start should be relative to the length of the film i.e. 30 mins of ads is fine if the film is 1 and a half hours long but it is not acceptable when the film is pushing 3 hours. I wish the standard length would go back to 1 hour 30.
My daughter went to the new Transformers film last night. 3 hours. Stupid.I know LOTR was that long, but they had the quality material for that.
good points raised about movie times, they are definitely increasing. But actually I find that with books as well. It is common now for mainstream thrillers to be 150k+ words, i think it must be publishers putting pressure on writers to put out bigger books to impress readers but actually i find the extra length is generally just unneeded gumph.90-120k i think is still plenty long enough.
Will wrote: "My daughter went to the new Transformers film last night. 3 hours. Stupid.I know LOTR was that long, but they had the quality material for that."
That really is ridiculous for that type of movie.
Prior to discovering the joys of Indie books I eagerly anticipated the ongoing sagas of my favourite authors. Characters such as Cross, Rebus, Rhyme, Hill, Dalziel & Pascoe, Scarpetta etc. were like dear friends to me. I still find time to catch up with their antics but feel less inclined to buy the books immediately on release. With Indie books I still like to follow specific characters and watch my favourite authors threads in anticipation of their next airing so I guess I'm saying (rather long windily) that I do LOVE a series and in my opinion the longer the better as long as quality and depth is maintained.
I don't appreciate cliff hangers though!
I was reading just a day or so ago that one of the classic authors who wrote a number of novellas was told by an author friends that he'd written several thousand words that day. He replied 'I've written three hundred and twenty - but they are the right words.'
The LOTR movies still had to cut out a lot of stuff to fit them in to a 3 hour slot so that is fair enough but was really gets me is that they have made the hobbit into 3 movies each at around 3 hours long and have had to add in extra (pointless and stupid) story lines to pad it out.
There seems to be a lot of serials rather than series around at the mo. Not sure I'm keen. I don't want to buy half a dozen books to find out who dunnit. I like each book to be able to stand alone.The Jack Reacher books work great, I think. The reader knows exactly what they're getting and that the story will finish at the end of the book.
Ooo er. I'm wondering whether I should write any more Verity books now. :(
Lynda wrote: "Ooo er. I'm wondering whether I should write any more Verity books now. :("Haha, I know what you mean!
I'm glad I stuck to a trilogy for the Enemy series :)
(and they aren't overly long either)
It would depend on how the storyline develops, I have read lots trilogies but then I have followed series with 7 books where each character has their own story. They are still intertwined in the other books as well. Those I always pre-order so as not to miss the next story.Then there have been some trilogies where I have thought one book would have been enough.
In cases I didn't even buy the second or third book as I already knew the story and it would have been a waste of time .
I'm going to stick to my planned 8 - 12 books in my Banned collection, before I review that.It's not a series or a serial, so as long as I can keep it fresh with different characters and subject matter, why not?
But the other stuff I'll keep as trilogies for now
A lot does depend on the characters and the type of story and the writing. I think I'm fed up of GoT because the 5th book felt like a new series you have to start reading to find out what happened in the first series. There's so many new characters introduced and I just don't care about them, the only one left that I want to find out about is Arya. Even Daenareys was boring in the last book. If an author can avoid that and spin a good yarn then there is no reason why you can't write 8-12 good books. Best to finish leaving the readers wanting more too.
I wonder if we are seeing the emergence of a new art form? Well, a newish art form...Every time technology changes we get new ways of expressing art, or telling stories. The printing press allowed us to develop novels. Cinema allowed films to be invented. Computers begat video games. Digital cameras and the internet created selfies and video clips of kittens falling over.
Kindles and other e-readers allow us to put things into print that wouldn't ordinarily be possible. Very long or very short books. Indie books (yay!). Fifty shades of naughty mummy porn where you would be ashamed to show the world the cover of the book you were reading. Probably breathlessly.
And that could mean that we are entering the era of the indie-saga. The downside of the kindle is that anyone can publish which means that the market is flooded. Amazon has over 600,000 novels available for kindle, and growing. One proven way to find a readership in this highly competitive market is to produce a series. Give the first book away for free, then hook your readers onto book 2, book 3 ...
And as everyone realises that, we could get to the stage where the single indie book dies away. Maybe our great great grandchildren might laugh at us for publishing just one book. How terribly old fashioned and quaint!
I like a stand alone book though. You can read it, enjoy it and not worry about finding out what happens next
Will wrote: "My daughter went to the new Transformers film last night. 3 hours. Stupid.2:37. And only 15 minutes of that is plot. The rest is just CG explosions and smashing stuff.
Tim wrote: "Cereals give me bloat."See??? It's not always me who derails threads!
There's clearly a big difference between a series and a serial. As long as I admire the central characters and the writing stays fresh I don't care how long a series is. The Bertie Wooster and Rebus books could have continued forever as far as I was concerned. A serial is different. I'd never buy the first book in a serial by an author I don't know in case I'm faced with buying a lot of books to find out how the tale ends when I'm not really enjoying the writing style. Even with favourite authors serials can be too long. I've been reading the Saxon serial by Patrick Cornwell for years. I'm convinced that each new book must see the end of Uhtred's tale, but The Empty Throne (due out in October) is the eighth in the series. After the fourth book it was feeling repetitive.
Would you class Harry Potter as a series or a serial? Each book does have it's own resolution but then they are all building up to the final battle in the 7th book so there are some serial themes.
For me it's a serial. Each book may describe a battle, but the war isn't won until the last one.
Yea I guess, the final battle is what all the books have been working up to.
For me it's a series. Each book concludes a story, but the series has an overall story arc, as one should.
The initial The Green Mile was a series. I refused to read it until it was published as one proper book.
Kath wrote: "I enjoyed raising steam! I didn't think there was any question about that!They do fall into groups, though. The witches, the watch, etc. Love 'em all. It's the sense of humour and gentle wisd..."
I enjoyed it as well, but I know people who walked away from it half way through.
Raising Steam struck me as almost an author saying 'good bye' to a lot of old friends.
Jack Vance did something similar, Ports of Call and Lurulu are almost examples of the Master enjoying himself and showing how it should be done. No great plot, just a series of stories involving the same people as they interact with some of Vance's most interesting backgrounds :-)
With my Fantasy I just wrote five books set in the same world and three of them followed one person but my idea was they can be picked up and read in any order.
I don't think that there is an ideal number for a series, so long as the constituent books each have a valuable contribution to the series arc. The HP books for the most part added to the overall story as well as existing as stand alone stories in their own right (with the possible exception of Order of the Phoenix which was a bit of a chore). Up to and including book three, George RR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series seemed to be heading in the right direction, but books four and five have become bloated and self indulgent with the author becoming more interested in detailing what's on a menu than bothering with such trivial matters such as plot. Apparently he's aiming for seven books which unlike Rowling's series seems too long.
I began writing with a trilogy in mind, based roughly on a three act story. However after a couple of drafts on book 2 I've settled on four books as book three would have had too much plot for its own good.
I never planned a series. I wrote one story and enjoyed being with that (those) character(s) so much that I've kept on writing them. When it stops being fun for me I'll stop writing them. I've tried to keep them standalone, but there is now (in book 5) a plot arc emerging, but each will have a definite end point. No cliffhangers here.
I've heard a lot of people say they gave up on Harry Potter after book 2, because it was just repeating itself, and even more gave up after book 4, cos she clearly needed an editor who could stand up to her.
Darren wrote: "I never planned a series. I wrote one story and enjoyed being with that (those) character(s) so much that I've kept on writing them. When it stops being fun for me I'll stop writing them. I've tried to keep them standalone, but there is now (in book 5) a plot arc emerging, but each will have a definite end point. No cliffhangers here. ..."That's what I did, but do you find that people expect them to be a trilogy or whatever and have to be read in a particular order?
I've actually started saying on the websites and stuff that the books are a collection, not a series, to discourage that idea.
Michael wrote: "A trilogy feels good for an author because it offers them plenty of scope for their characters without sounding too much like an unattainable slog to work on.It might be similar for readers as we..."
Is a trilogy a series? More of a long story split into three I'd say.
I called them a trilogy, but maybe I should have called the combined book an omnibus.
hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm............how about a trilleybus!! Sorry, it's been a long week.
Its a good thing they aren't horror, or you couls call them an ominous...
Gingerlily - Elephant Philosopher wrote: "Its a good thing they aren't horror, or you couls call them an ominous..."couls, a cowled ghoul found mainly in Lytham St Annes
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
Raising Steam (other topics)Ports of Call (other topics)
Lurulu (other topics)
Trilogies I think have always had a certain attraction because they offer a reader the prospect of inter-connected stories in a manageable chunk (and it's what I've done for my own series).
but then, more recently we have hugely successful series of 6-7 for things like Twilight/Harry Potter.
Further up we have things like Jack Reacher which is now past 20 stories (but which aren't necessarily connected).
Is there an ideal number from a readers perspective?