Ironworks Gaming Forum - trilogys and stuff

I think it has much to do with the need to be unique, as well as tradition/expectations.

As a fantasy author, you can't borrow someone's world, magic system, or characters. Instead, you've got to create your own. Add to that that you have much more freedom in what you do than in other forms of writing. Because the world is your world, anything and everything you decide to do, if done properly, is believable.

Tradition also weighs in heavily. Fantasy as we know it started from two main sources... pulp and Tolkien. The first relied mostly upon 15,000 word or so short stories and it brings us the likes of Elric and Conan. These characters typically accomplished their goal (or at least wound up out of danger) in each 15,000 page segment. But characters, enemies, and the like were persistant and often the authors had their whole history figured out before hand. The characters developed. Tolkien inspired an attention to detail in terms of cultures and past histories. While the pulps encouraged character building, Tolkien encouraged world building. Meanwhile, the reader expects epic things to occur. A simple murder and the like isn't epic.

Combine it all and you have a style of writing that encourages the development of entire worlds and the creation of stories that span 3 or more books.

And while this is typically good, it can also go bad.

People expect sequels. Which means that if you don't plan your whole story before hand, you've got to keep introducing new villians, each in some way tougher than the last. Some writers get stretched to the edge of what they can create (Eddings, for one). Of course, consumer/publisher demand also factors in. The demand for yet another book, when the author might want to move on to something else, writer's block, whatever. A good example of this is Rowley's Bazil Broketail series... good series, but the last book was a bit disappointing, or the Xanth series, which changed it's direction big time in Ogre-Ogre. However, the sequels aren't really a many volume thing... they are sequels just like any other non-fantasy character. They do tend to get judged compared to the true multi-volumes though. The same type of feeling can occur in the multi-volumes though, when an author hasn't fully thought the whole story through. Typically, when this occurs, you'll get a great build up... and the last book or two will be skinny compared to the rest. It can be caused by the author or by the publisher wanting the book before the author has time to flesh it all out properly.

And then there are the true multi-volumes. Some people can get lost in all the details. They lose their grip on the story, try and pack in too many references to languages (Tolkien) or various minor plot threads (Jordan). It's not publisher demand. It's the authors. They create this whole world and fall into a trap of "ooh, this is neat" and put it in the book. Add too much and it grows convoluted and detracts instead of adds to the story.

For the most part though, the multi-book epics strengthen the fantasy category. Most people can't write a great series on the 3rd world war that spans multiple books. It's not accepted for that genre. Consider World War III, Team Yankee, or Red Storm Rising... all three depict relatively short wars... just short enough to fit nicely into a single book.

Gotta take the good with the bad. And overall, there's a lot of good.