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kateelliottMild (no names) Spoilers. You’ve been warned.
Trilogies are a staple of the genre. There’s much that can be said about the history of the novel (and the romance, small ‘r’), but I’m not going to say it here. However, if you (yes, YOU) want to enlighten us in the comments about the history of the trilogy in the novel form, please do so. Or post in your own topic and let us know.
The following is how I would describe a textbook trilogy, in very broad strokes and using the form of three separate volumes to accomplish something different than a complete story in one volume, a series made up of “Reset” tales (each tale stands alone and there is little if any significant change in the main character(s) from volume to volume), or a multi-volume novel in which a long story arc is unfolded over multiple episodes (we’re seeing this form on HBO a lot these days).
So:
Act One presents the hero/ine with a problem and shows her/him scoring a small success.
Act Two shows the hero/ine’s enemies gathering and revising his/her earlier success.
Act Three the hero/ine either ultimately triumphs, or triumphs at great cost to himself. It’s unusual but not unknown for the hero/ine to fail utterly without some positive achievement somewhere, but let’s not quibble. Or let’s. Your choice.
I recently picked up a children’s fantasy novel, first in a series, that had all the likely ingredients: an appealing protagonist, a cool set-up for the world, a nifty plot device, interesting secondary characters, and suspense wrapped around a tidy plot that came to a satisfying, if temporary, conclusion. Finishing the first book, I started the second. And I realized that the second novel was going to be much like the first, only more of it. And the third, and so on.
I am not here to complain about this method of series writing, what I referred to before as the "Reset" story and what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eeknight has cleverly called “The Playground Slide” serial (climb up, slide down to where you were before). When readers want to continue reading more of a world and characters, then the author has done something right. But it’s not always enough for me, personally, as a reader - it’s one reason I like this new trend on tv, stolen from the telenovelas and Korean soap operas, of long-form but finite series.
So I picked up the first volume of the Midnighters trilogy, The Secret Hour, with anticipation, because in general I have good luck with first volumes. Indeed, I enjoyed it.
Westerfeld writes a textbook first volume: newcomer comes to town, discovers something weird is going on, finds out others are involved, falls into danger, gets out with the help of those others, discovers her secret power, and accepts that her life has changed. Good jokes, good interplay between the characters, a very nifty concept for the hook (the secret hour), all wrapped up with a tidy bow at the end.
With trepidation, I started volume two, Touching Darkness.
Joy! It worked for me, as did volume three, Blue Noon.
Here’s what he did right, from my perspective, and what lessons anyone now considering or in the process of writing a trilogy can take from it if they care to (again, imo and based on the definition above).
In volume one, Westerfeld lays out the situation (see paragraph above) without trying to overcompensate by developing too much. It is enough to be introduced to the world and situation, the characters who will matter, their basic conflicts and abilities, and through several suspenseful events and a series of encounters reveal what is at stake. In addition, the first character we meet is revealed as a powerful player, and accepts her role.
In volume two he raises the stakes. How he raises them is all implicit (foreshadowed) in volume one; off-hand and without consulting the book I can’t think of anything revealed in volume two that wasn’t already touched on in volume one, so nothing came as a surprise - except that the stakes were raised with a clear and immediate impact, one that rachetts up the tension level for the entire plot. Instead of more episodic danger-escape scenes and a bigger bad guy who is, at heart, just like the first one, our entire experience of the world and the characters is heightened. Throughout this, Westerfeld begins to deepen the external conflicts, and especially some of the internal conflicts and inter-relationship conflicts, as well, leading us into:
Volume three, in which he again raises the stakes with a new and yet even greater threat and conflict that now overshadows everything that came before, and which as it were embraces everything that came before. Meanwhile, several of the characters are changing in profound ways that make them quite different people from the ones we were introduced to in volume one. Meanwhile, a couple of the other characters do not radically change - this contrast between characters who alter and characters whose essential nature remains relatively static, although never uninteresting, provides a restful contrast. If everyone is changing, that’s exhausting. If everyone is static, that’s boring.
I found Midnighters to be not just a good read but also a good example of a trilogy done well.
As an added bonus, Westerfeld makes a compelling case for math being cool.
Plus, you will never again think the way you used to about the number thirteen.
Momentousness!
Trilogies are a staple of the genre. There’s much that can be said about the history of the novel (and the romance, small ‘r’), but I’m not going to say it here. However, if you (yes, YOU) want to enlighten us in the comments about the history of the trilogy in the novel form, please do so. Or post in your own topic and let us know.
The following is how I would describe a textbook trilogy, in very broad strokes and using the form of three separate volumes to accomplish something different than a complete story in one volume, a series made up of “Reset” tales (each tale stands alone and there is little if any significant change in the main character(s) from volume to volume), or a multi-volume novel in which a long story arc is unfolded over multiple episodes (we’re seeing this form on HBO a lot these days).
So:
Act One presents the hero/ine with a problem and shows her/him scoring a small success.
Act Two shows the hero/ine’s enemies gathering and revising his/her earlier success.
Act Three the hero/ine either ultimately triumphs, or triumphs at great cost to himself. It’s unusual but not unknown for the hero/ine to fail utterly without some positive achievement somewhere, but let’s not quibble. Or let’s. Your choice.
I recently picked up a children’s fantasy novel, first in a series, that had all the likely ingredients: an appealing protagonist, a cool set-up for the world, a nifty plot device, interesting secondary characters, and suspense wrapped around a tidy plot that came to a satisfying, if temporary, conclusion. Finishing the first book, I started the second. And I realized that the second novel was going to be much like the first, only more of it. And the third, and so on.
I am not here to complain about this method of series writing, what I referred to before as the "Reset" story and what
eeknight has cleverly called “The Playground Slide” serial (climb up, slide down to where you were before). When readers want to continue reading more of a world and characters, then the author has done something right. But it’s not always enough for me, personally, as a reader - it’s one reason I like this new trend on tv, stolen from the telenovelas and Korean soap operas, of long-form but finite series.So I picked up the first volume of the Midnighters trilogy, The Secret Hour, with anticipation, because in general I have good luck with first volumes. Indeed, I enjoyed it.
Westerfeld writes a textbook first volume: newcomer comes to town, discovers something weird is going on, finds out others are involved, falls into danger, gets out with the help of those others, discovers her secret power, and accepts that her life has changed. Good jokes, good interplay between the characters, a very nifty concept for the hook (the secret hour), all wrapped up with a tidy bow at the end.
With trepidation, I started volume two, Touching Darkness.
Joy! It worked for me, as did volume three, Blue Noon.
Here’s what he did right, from my perspective, and what lessons anyone now considering or in the process of writing a trilogy can take from it if they care to (again, imo and based on the definition above).
In volume one, Westerfeld lays out the situation (see paragraph above) without trying to overcompensate by developing too much. It is enough to be introduced to the world and situation, the characters who will matter, their basic conflicts and abilities, and through several suspenseful events and a series of encounters reveal what is at stake. In addition, the first character we meet is revealed as a powerful player, and accepts her role.
In volume two he raises the stakes. How he raises them is all implicit (foreshadowed) in volume one; off-hand and without consulting the book I can’t think of anything revealed in volume two that wasn’t already touched on in volume one, so nothing came as a surprise - except that the stakes were raised with a clear and immediate impact, one that rachetts up the tension level for the entire plot. Instead of more episodic danger-escape scenes and a bigger bad guy who is, at heart, just like the first one, our entire experience of the world and the characters is heightened. Throughout this, Westerfeld begins to deepen the external conflicts, and especially some of the internal conflicts and inter-relationship conflicts, as well, leading us into:
Volume three, in which he again raises the stakes with a new and yet even greater threat and conflict that now overshadows everything that came before, and which as it were embraces everything that came before. Meanwhile, several of the characters are changing in profound ways that make them quite different people from the ones we were introduced to in volume one. Meanwhile, a couple of the other characters do not radically change - this contrast between characters who alter and characters whose essential nature remains relatively static, although never uninteresting, provides a restful contrast. If everyone is changing, that’s exhausting. If everyone is static, that’s boring.
I found Midnighters to be not just a good read but also a good example of a trilogy done well.
As an added bonus, Westerfeld makes a compelling case for math being cool.
Plus, you will never again think the way you used to about the number thirteen.
Momentousness!