Charles Dickens did it. So did Alexandre Dumas. And Arthur Conan Doyle, with his wildly popular Sherlock Holmes stories.
We’re talking about serial writing, of course, that practice of releasing stories chapter by chapter which has now swung back into fashion, depending who’s talking in today’s publishing world.
Harlequin on the Go promises Verizon subscribers a chapter a day delivered straight to their cell phones.
Newspapers in Education publishes a new installment of a children’s story on its Classroom webpage each Monday.
And Virtual Tales sends mini-chapters of its novels to readers’ email accounts twice weekly.
Will serial publication survive, or thrive, in today’s hard-wired world? Well, for some readers, it would seem to be a convenient way to read a story, considering how many people spend their days chained to a computer. To have a chapter delivered straight to your Blackberry in time for lunch seems pretty nice.
The opportunity to write for a serial market offers some attractive qualities for authors, too. Since being contracted by a serial publisher, I’ve worked a lot harder to write tight chapters: after all, who’s going to keep ordering installments of my story if each one ends in a predictable, ho-hum manner? I remind myself to think of soap operas: a doctor turns out to be a killer just before the credits roll, or a mother finds out her daughter is working as a prostitute in the last two minutes of the Friday episode. Of course viewers are going to tune in for the next episode! How could they not?
However, right now, it doesn’t seem as though serial publication is flourishing, despite the many hours people spend online. While I’m enjoying my experience with it, I’m definitely not limiting myself to that market alone. If anything, it’s been a good study of the craft while I target more traditional markets.
Bottom line: I wonder if readers prefer to have the entire story all at once? I’d guess that some people—maybe a lot of people—don’t have the patience to wait days for the next chapter to arrive. And then there’s the whole aesthetic pleasure of holding an actual book in your hands, with its shiny cover and crisp new pages. You can stick it in your bag or leave it on your nightstand and read however many chapters you choose, at your own leisure. Can’t do that if you’re downloading chapter by chapter, can you?
What do you think? Would you take advantage of a company that packages stories for its readers, doling them out according to schedule? Or would you prefer to have the whole story in front of you, to read when and where you choose? Would you consider writing for a company that published that way, or would you feel confined by the parameters of serialization?
Is serial story-telling here to stay, or is it just a passing phase?
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No serials for me. I won’t even watch mini-series on television. If I can’t get it all right now I don’t want it. Serialization served a purpose in it’s heyday. I can’t think of any reason to serialize today except as some kind of novelty or gimmick.
I think thats a big problem with the way DVDs of tv series are released.
The companies think if no one is buying the single seasons, they end up not releasing them all.
The viewers/buyers want to know the whole series will be available before they start buying.
No one wants to end up with an incomplete set.
I like serials but I will only read/watch/listen to them if I know they are complete and the entire series/set is available.
I don’t want to get into something and be left hanging…permanently.
I would write—
I have a terrible memory and I speedread so I tend not to read anything that can not stand on its own (that includes series).
However, if the feed was a collection of standalone short stories (like blog entries), THEN I would buy it. Hhhmmm…but then you are competing with blogs already offering that service for free (well, in exchange for advertising revenue).
I’m too impatient. If I’m reading a story, I want the whole story. If I was getting a serial, I’d probably save all the chapters until I had it all and then read. It’s just not how I read.
No serial reading isn’t for me.
I am always too anxious to find out what is happening. That is why I get to sleep at 5:00 AM some summer nights because I start a book and can’t put it down to the end.
I wrote a seriel novella on eHarlequin. It was fun seeing what the readers thought might happen next in the week between chapter releases. I do know there were readers who wouldn’t start the thing until all of the chapters were there. I have to admit, I’m one of those. I don’t like to wait.
I rarely read just one chapter of anything at a sitting. It’s hard to enjoy a book if you only have a few pages at a time – you lose track of what’s going on so easily!
I don’t think I’d like serials — I did release a book on my website in serial, chapter by chapter, and that was fun, but wouldn’t do it often (lots of formatting! lol). As a reader, I’m into immediate gratification, and it’s sometimes hard enough to wait for series books, let alone drift from chapter to chapter. Also, I think there’s so much out there to read that if someone’s waiting to long in the meantime for satisfaction on a serial storyline, they might just pass altogether and find something else…
Sam
It would never work for me. I don’t have a regular reading schedule. I’m the single mom of a toddler, and my reading time tends to be in the bathtub or random moments here and there. I take it when I can get it, and if I’m waiting on my next installment to arrive…
But it sounds perfect for maybe a younger, fast paced lifestyle. JMHO of course.
I’m facing this possibility with my first novel. I would certainly keep writing as long as the stories interested me and I didn’t feel I was doing the same thing over and over.
This is not *all* I want to do, however.
BattleCorps, the website for which I write, publishes weekly serials. Six to eight chapters, usually, which average 3-4k each. Two of my last five sales to the site have been serials, 36k and 39k each, each published in 12 chapters.
Those readers who don’t like serials wait until all the chapters are out before they start reading. (And, yes, I’m one of the ones who waits for all parts of the story to be available.)
Oops. Bad link in last post. Try: http://battlecorps.com/BC2/index.html