Episode 223: Writing and Reading Trilogies

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Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re finishing off our conversation on different types of stories by talking about reading and writing trilogy books.

In this episode, we’re exploring some characteristics of these stories and some of our favorite duologies including Divergent/Insurgent/Allegiant, Hunger Games/Catching Fire/ Mockingjay, and Caravel/Legendary/Finale and a little of what we like most about them.

Throughout this discussion, we talk about the things these trilogies did well. Like:

  • Allegiant - Ending in a way that was difficult to take, but felt honest as well as surprising and a culmination of all that came before

  • Catching Fire - Using moments of light and levity to help keep the stories from becoming a slog

  • Mockingjay - Taking your characters greatest fears and forcing them to live with them

  • Caraval - Creating a fantastic standalone story with twists that then changes POV – allowing the reveal of new and shocking information that propels you into the next book

  • Legendary - Employing a change in geography to literally expand the world of the 2nd and 3rd books. 

Towards the end of our conversation, we talk about the trilogies we love function well as both standalone stories and an overarching one (often 3 three-act stories that also tell a cohesive tale). We talk again about how knowing where you are going and using what’s come before to help figure out where you need to go can be imperative to write these well. We also talk about how some trilogies are unsatisfying, because they act more like sequels than a true trilogy. 

But, we note how most trilogies that work well closely tie together and expand on what’s come before – often exploring deeper and further the details and themes from the 1st and 2nd stories while making the stakes higher and introducing new places and characters on it’s way to a surprising but inevitable ending.  

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

We open by talking about trilogy and writing an ending that feels authentic to your book even if it may be difficult for your audience using Veronica Roth’s Allegiant. Here’s an article where she talks about her ending:

Here is our other conversation within this series:

Books Mentioned:

Music from:https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman