The days of the Three Volume Novel are long since past. They were popular last century, when printing and binding were expensive, and novels were often first serialised in periodicals prior to publication. Part 1 was used to whet the reader's appetite for parts 2 and 3, ensuring an otherwise expensive purchase. With books being relatively rare, and life in general slower, readers were prepared to wait for the next installment to be printed - although usually, the books had already been written, edited, serialised and just needed to be bound and printed.

But a three volume novel is not a book series.

A book series is, at the risk of being obvious, a series of stories. Each story in the series is discrete, complete and structurally stands alone. It may rely on information in the previous books, but it has a hook at the beginning, a well-shaped structure, and closes off its end-points in the final chapters. It satisfies the reader with an ending, even if some of that ending leaves room for the rest of the story. Even if there's an overarching plot for the entire series, each book has its own plot that comes to a satisfying resolution.

The three volume novel does not do this. It's the one story chopped into three pieces. And it just doesn't work anymore.

When a reader picks up a book, they expect (and some would say deserve) a satisfying reading experience. They expect a journey that pulls them along, moves them, poses questions and opens threads which will be resolved by the end of the book.

A three volume novel looks like that on the surface, but it doesn't deliver. It's only towards the last third that a seasoned reader will realise things aren't quite right - the pacing and structure are wrong. We should be heading for an Act 2 climax, or a plot twist or pinch, but instead, we're stuck in Act 2. Continuing on, the book ends with very little resolved, usually a whole lot of new questions unanswered, and - and this is the important part - the reader's faith in the author is destroyed.

The reader put their faith in the author to give them a satisfying story, and the author led them along, and then gave them nothing. No answers, no resolution, just someone wandering off on a new quest near the end of the book.  There's emotion and energy invested in the book that has no payoff. 

Each book should be a satisfying story in its own right. Your reader has paid you money for the experience - you're not giving them what they paid for. If you're planning a story that stretches over three (or more) books, then you need to do one of the following:

• take a good, hard look at that story and see if you can fit it in one. Are you, in fact, trying to tell four stories at once?
• find an individual story for each book to take centre stage, and relegate your multi-book story to the background.

Warning signs that you're writing a three volume novel include:

• Major characters start quests that will take them some time to complete past the half-way point of the book
• Several points, especially toward the end of the book, where not very much important is happening, and you're really just making time
• The book ends on a cliffhanger
• The second book is mostly about getting from book 1 to book 3
• You can't possibly pick up book 2 or 3 without reading the previous ones
• You can't show in point form the book's story arc - the beginning situation, how it's completely inverted, what and where the plot points were.

Note that I'm not saying you can't span a story over several books. But each book must be a story in its own right, all on its own, without any help from its friends. Otherwise it's not a series. It's just lazy writing.

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