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Q&A Should I turn my enormous novel into a series?

This sounds closest to The Lord of the Rings, which is one enormous story split into three physical volumes. Each volume contains two parts which Tolkien labelled books, but Tolkien himself though...

posted 9y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:28Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16645
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:08:09Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16645
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T04:08:09Z (about 5 years ago)
- This sounds closest to _The Lord of the Rings,_ which is one enormous story split into three physical volumes. Each volume contains two parts which Tolkien labelled books, but Tolkien himself thought of it as one work, not three (or six).
- GRRMartin's fourth book of _A Song of Ice and Fire_ (aka _Game of Thrones_) got so unwieldy that he split it into two, _A Feast for Crows_ and _A Dance with Dragons._ He chose to separate it by character and geography rather than time, which is unusual, but since he has about eleventy billion POV characters, he can get away with it.
- David Eddings's first series, the Belgariad, was originally three books, but his publisher talked him into splitting it into five. I think the Malloreon (the sequel series) was planned as five, but then he and his wife released two more series with three books each.

So yes, it can certainly be done. I would only suggest that you try to divide your books at reasonable "act breaks" and not just end abruptly mid-scene (which is what happened to Eddings when he changed the Belgariad from three books to five).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-03-26T15:43:35Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 1