I'd say a trilogy does NOT need explanations or recaps, because I've always considered a trilogy to be one story split into parts, a whole in three pieces. It always annoyed me to read explanations or recaps of things that I knew perfectly well because I had read the previous books.
If you package it as one long book, the recaps and explanations are not there because you consider that even though it is as far back in the story as it would be in a trilogy, because it is the "same book" now, it is clearer in the reader's head?
For me it is the same thing. I expect to be disagreed with on this though!
Yeah, I have to agree with you. Recaps are annoying and unnecessary. And it’s why I was thinking of putting all 3 parts into one really long book (~700k) instead of 3 long books (~210k each).
A long book can be good or bad, but in the age of ebooks, unless the reader has a physical book in hand, they have a hard time telling exactly how large a story is.
Not only that, but in a practical manner, while a mammoth story can be made miniature or vice versa...
Doing and how difficult the doing is are two different things.
Best let things be as short or as long as need be, but no longer. Certainly isn't no good if the reader feels cheated by an abrupt end or bored by a meandering middle
I'd say a trilogy does NOT need explanations or recaps, because I've always considered a trilogy to be one story split into parts, a whole in three pieces. It always annoyed me to read explanations or recaps of things that I knew perfectly well because I had read the previous books.
If you package it as one long book, the recaps and explanations are not there because you consider that even though it is as far back in the story as it would be in a trilogy, because it is the "same book" now, it is clearer in the reader's head?
For me it is the same thing. I expect to be disagreed with on this though!
Yeah, I have to agree with you. Recaps are annoying and unnecessary. And it’s why I was thinking of putting all 3 parts into one really long book (~700k) instead of 3 long books (~210k each).
New short story! https://open.substack.com/pub/rgarron/p/casual-entertainment?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=336zru
A long book can be good or bad, but in the age of ebooks, unless the reader has a physical book in hand, they have a hard time telling exactly how large a story is.
Not only that, but in a practical manner, while a mammoth story can be made miniature or vice versa...
Doing and how difficult the doing is are two different things.
Best let things be as short or as long as need be, but no longer. Certainly isn't no good if the reader feels cheated by an abrupt end or bored by a meandering middle
I don't really care. If I like a story, I'll read it anyway. :-)
Yeah, there were others on that Reddit thread who said the same thing. I tend to agree. But that doesn’t get me closer to deciding what to do. Sigh.
Right.
Look, given the current publishing market, I would suggest you break the story up. You can always reassemble the parts in a later edition.