on Fiction University:

There are two views on writing trilogies. Write only the first book and see if it sells, and write the whole thing before you start querying.

I hadn’t intended to write a trilogy when I started The Shifter, but as I wrote closer to the ending, I realized the story could continue for a few more books. There was a bigger world with bigger problems to explore, if I wanted to follow along.

Which I did. So I pitched the novel as a stand-alone that could continue as a trilogy, and that’s how we sold it. The two editors who’d wanted it–one wanted the trilogy, the other the stand alone book. This is a good example of how this could have gone either way.