Trilogies

[madelinemasoch]

Have you ever read or written a trilogy on here? How long was it, part-by-part? Did the parts have chapters of their own?

I think it's an avenue more appealing than one-offs or even long chapter serials right now. I'm just curious about lengths.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’m not sure it’s precisely a trilogy, but Coleoidphilia, Determination, and Caputpedes are three of my stories which continue on from each other, but can [if you squint] be read independently. It’s all one story.

Coleoidphilia ~10k words

Determination ~20k words

Caputpedes ~30k words

Em

 

[SyleusSnow]

My first stories (starting with All for you) turned into a trilogy. Wasn't planned that way. The first 2 chapters were 7K words each, with the final being 11K.

Chapters of my On the Side trilogy (again, unplanned) clocked in between 10K and 15K.

Warmer by the Lake became a four-parter so doesn't exactly fit here, but each chapter except one short one were 10K.

For all stories, whether stand-alone or a series, I aim for 10K each. Lit readers tend to like stories a little longer... maybe 13K words. Much longer than that seems to turn readers off as being too much of a time investment, especially when it's an unfamiliar author.

 

[Altissimus]

Do you mean 'three chapters'? Then yes, I've done that a few times.

Or did you mean 'finish a story (number of chapters irrelevant), start another story in the same universe, and then another one after that'? In which case, no... I tend not to revisit old premises.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I've completed parts 1 and 2 of my Hammered trilogy as part of the Hammered: Ode to Mickey Spillane Challenge. Part 1, Big City, Dark Nights, takes place in 1953 and is 14,800 words long. Part 2, A Jewel to Die For, is 22,900 words and takes place in 1973. Part 3, in development for next year's event steps back to 1953 and 1973 for a bit to reveal a few events that were hinted at in the first two and will then tie up the loose ends from the first two stories in 1975. I'm expecting it to be 15 to 20K words long.

I deliberately left loose ends in the first story (they're mentioned near the end) and tied up some but added more in Part 2 with the idea that it would be a trilogy, but they're written in such a way that readers don't have to have read the previous parts.

 

[yowser]

While I have more than one three-part series, the only one that would qualify as a trilogy, the Infernal Folio collection, is unusual in that it begins with a first person POV narration from the female MC but shifts to her male counterpart in the second, to return to her perspective in the third.

First story is a set up, fairly short at 5.3k words, the second and third parts longer at 10.2 and 11.8k.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

Ongoing post-apocalyptic 'trilogy' work here. The parent series, The Dead World, is many chapters in. It has a spin off in the same universe, West of the End. And a prequel series planned, Ground Zero. It's all dark as fuck, it's an action and psychological horror heavy story. The original series is over 200K words. I'm looking at only penning half of that for the spin off. The prequel will be itty-bitty.

One of my fans has suggested I snip some of the rough material and push this story mainstream, they think it can stand alone without the erotica padding. It's a clever thought. We'll see I suppose.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Do you mean 'three chapters'? Then yes, I've done that a few times.

Or did you mean 'finish a story (number of chapters irrelevant), start another story in the same universe, and then another one after that'? In which case, no... I tend not to revisit old premises.

I never know the proper definition. People say LoTR is not a trilogy and I get that. Mine is maybe more akin to LoTR (in structure, if nothing else).

Em

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I've been calling my Sacrifice Tales a trilogy, but it's only a trilogy until I write the next new part. I just re-released the open story. The other two parts will be released here during the Halloween contest. Each story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. They are short stories, not novellas or novels. I think the middle part will be released as a part of the contest but not the third. I plan on it being a Halloween day release if I can manage that.

EDIT: @EmilyMiller, LoTR, in my humble opinion, was a trilogy.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I forgot to mention that my Home on the Range Series (Where the Buffalo Roam, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play, and A Discouraging Word) currently looks like a trilogy, with three standalone parts with a different lead character each time but old characters and events carrying over, it isn't a trilogy since another part has long been planned (and is in development) and one or two more parts are conceptualized.

Hey! If it makes it to six parts, that would be a hexalogy, though I may change the series name to the "Home on the Range Sexology" instead.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I've been calling my Sacrifice Tales a trilogy, but it's only a trilogy until I write the next new part. I just re-released the open story. The other two parts will be released here during the Halloween contest. Each story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. They are short stories, not novellas or novels. I think the middle part will be released as a part of the contest but not the third. I plan on it being a Halloween day release if I can manage that.

EDIT: @EmilyMiller, LoTR, in my humble opinion, was a trilogy.

I’m not going to claim to be definitive. But some people say LoTR is just one story, split into three volumes (and six books or whatever it is).

Some people say that a trilogy is three stand-alone stories that are connected (and maybe also follow on from each other in time).

I don’t claim to be a sophisticate in this area.

Em

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I’m not going to claim to be definitive. But some people say LoTR is just one story, split into three volumes (and six books or whatever it is).

Some people say that a trilogy is three stand-alone stories that are connected (and maybe also follow on from each other in time).

I don’t claim to be a sophisticate in this area.

Em

Well, I always considered them a trilogy with a prequel or two. I cant' remember how many stories there are right now or in what order they were written.

 

[AlinaX]

I've had series stop at three chapters, but the only actual trilogy is one of my earliest writings here:
Claimed by the Futanari
The three parts aren't long, just 3k, 4k & 5k respectively.

 

[EmilyMiller]

A trilogy is a set of three distinct works that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works.

Wikipedia

 

[ElectricBlue]

Have you ever read or written a trilogy on here? How long was it, part-by-part? Did the parts have chapters of their own?

I think it's an avenue more appealing than one-offs or even long chapter serials right now. I'm just curious about lengths.

Why a trilogy, specifically?

You can have any story length you like, there's no limit.

There's an endless story (in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, I think) which has chapters far into the hundreds. Someone has said, over a million words - I don't know, I've never read it.

The longest stand-alone story I've seen (no longer here, it's been removed by the author and published commercially) was over 80 Lit pages, about 300,000 words.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Why a trilogy, specifically?

It's a good number, and it encourages me to put more words into fewer posts.

 

[Rustyoznail]

A trilogy is a set of three distinct works that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works.

Wikipedia

Using that definition, yes. My "Cricket Anyone?" series grew to a trilogy, and has recently expanded to a quadrilogy. I doubt it will grow to a pentiology.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I'm big on overlapping "in-universe" stand-alone stories. Characters and locations can overlap. Having said that, I've recently embarked on a story that will end up in two or three parts. I'm excited to see how it unfolds.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I wrote a trilogy involving the same main characters in three separate stand-alone stories with different titles published in non-sequential order (#2 was written and published first, then #1, and finally #3). Each story covered an event that took place years apart from the others.

Series: Until It's Time for Me to Go
Story #1: f I Never Knew Your Name
Story #2: And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind
Story #3: Done Too Soon

My other stories that were written and published in parts were done so on purpose because they were continuous stories that I broke up into smaller chucks to make it easier to read, or, in one case, I was pulling together separate threads from three other story lines to tie them all up together.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

"Change", "Searching", and "Elements" are three novels that make up a connected trilogy in the universe that they exist in. Each is completely stand-alone but include a cliff-hanger that leads to the next in the trilogy.

A better example might be my "Uncle Sugar Daddy" incest trilogy. While stand-alone here on Literotica, these were combined into a three-part single book which is sold on various sites.

 

[AchtungNight]

I’ve done multiple stories in the same universe but never a trilogy. Never just three stories linked together. My imagination’s too expansive to limit myself like that.