Trilogies

[poliphilo]

What is it about trilogies?

Why does it feel awkward and unsatisfactory to have two books in a series, but supremely right to have three?

I've written two Purchas novels now, but I'm not going to be satisfied until I've finished the third.

Comments

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Humans like threes. Three wishes, three chances, and the trinity. Three acts, more importantly.

I wonder what that means for my series, which is a tetralogy being released in two volumes? I'm just all wrong. But I was going for the four & eight asian numbers rather than the three & seven western ones, and the publisher just had other ideas...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tetralogies are fine. Unusual but fine. I'm very fond of The Saga of the Exiles which- unless my memory is totally addled- is a tetralogy.

I guess Victorian novels often got issued in two volumes. But that's a little different. Dividing a single whole into two parts feels fine.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Like Kill Bill, I suppose. Call it Volume One and Volume Two feels all right--it's Book I and Book II that feels like it needs a third. Or Part I and Part II.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's it. That's it exactly.

But I don't know why....

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

It's a folkloric thing. There's innumberable essays. The best genuine explanation--not just observation--I've read is strangely enough in Foucault's Pendulum.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Someone (I rather think it was manfalling) borrowed my copy of Foucault's Pendulum and I haven't seen it for years.

Amazon, here I come....