As I pressed “Publish” on the final novel of the Caitlin O’Reilly suspense trilogy, I began to think…
Why a trilogy? Why is having a set of three books so common? Why not just two, or maybe four or five?
This thread of thought then rolled along until I was receiving a crash course in “threes.”
Three’s a Charm
Did you know the Rule of Three is actually a writing principle? I’ve been writing for (ahem) number of years (if I tell you, I’ll be revealing my true age…) and I never knew that. All right. But…why do we have it? The rule states that “a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers.”
So, I began researching why this is true—and got buried under a plethora of reasons, guesses, and suppositions that would leave us here for the next two (er, three?) weeks. The gamut ran from “everything that comes in threes is perfect,” to “as complex as the human brain is, we can actually only retain a small amount of information at once. An audience will typically only remember three things from a presentation or speech, so if you want something to stick out in their minds, present it as a trio.
Short, memorable patterns are easier for us to remember,” to “by creating a limit on the events, e.g. three, we feel comforted because we see an end to a run of bad luck or deaths.”
(See what happened there? Without even thinking about it I only gave three examples I had found…eerie, I tell you.)
A Trilogy
How does this swing back to the Caitlin O’Reilly trilogy that is now published and available for purchase you ask? Apparently, my brain has been programmed just as much as the rest of the world. Three books completed Caitlin’s story. It has a beginning (where secrets and betrayal abound), a middle (a very naughty, never-knew-you-existed family member shows up), and an end (tragic and hopeful all at the same time—insert bow here).
All this rambling to say that I am throwing my hands up in the air and admitting that I really have no idea why the world decided that three was the perfect number. But I’ll go along with it, because—why not? Threes seem to work well. So I say enjoy it and read on!
Caitlin O’Reilly Trilogy: When Darkness Killed Her, When Vengeance Reigned, When Death Whispered Her Name by D.A. Reed
