I’m currently reading Dracula Daily where each day you are sent a portion of the novel Dracula that corresponds to the events of that particular day. It’s a lot of fun to be emailed a portion of a novel just for that day, and it got me thinking about serialized fiction. I love the idea of novels that were released a bit at a time. I would imagine it would change both how the narrative is written and the reading experience, even if the full novel has already been released.
I know that Amazon has its Kindle Vella program (although I don’t have Kindle. I have a Kobo). Wattpad is often mentioned as a place for serialized storytelling. I’m wondering if anyone has used these or other services or have any recommendations. Where do you go for serialized storytelling? What do you do for quality control? What would you recommend?
by TomBirkenstock
16 Comments
I’m not typically a consumer of serialized fiction. I like to tear through books, but I do think it might be a form that books take going into the future. As in they become more mainstream. Whole releases being more like movies, and serialized works being more like tv. It’s not one to one, but you can think of it like that.
I’m in the middle of writing something that will be released in a serialized form on wattpad and royalroad, with a paid full version available for those that do not want to wait. So I’ve been thinking about the serialized forms that I think I see books taking. Full release won’t disappear but serialized may become more popular. It’s hard to say, but I think access and availability is what serialized work tend to have going for them since well they’re usually free online.
Slightly different, but at various times in my life over the last 20 years, I’ve gotten really into different comic books and mangas that are still in the process of being written. Usually they come out one a week or once a month.
I’ve enjoyed it every time. It also lets you get the two very different experiences of reading a chapter a week and waiting for the next one, and then going back at the end and reading it straight through without breaks. I find they are both rewarding, and I’m glad to get to experience it both ways.
Though sometimes waiting that extra week can seem intolerable.
The thing with Dracula is a cool idea. I think the modern digital and social media landscape has potential for some cool approaches to narrative based around serialization.
A writer I really enjoy, Mark Danielewski (most notorious for the novel *House of Leaves*) tried a pretty ambitious project several years ago called *The Familiar*. It was lined up as a 27 novel series, but with a much more frequent release timeline than your average series, which would see a new volume coming out every (I think) 4-ish months. The idea was to capture some version of the excitement that viewers of tv series experience, as episodes air every week and fans then flock to social media to discuss it, people come in to work and discuss the most recent episode with friends, etc. In this case, it would be a new entry every few months and, in theory, this would sustain a lot of energy in the fanbase.
Danielewski was definitely on-track to release it all. Only 5 volumes ended up releasing, but he was confirmed to have submitted several more to his publisher, since he needed to be completing them well in advance of pub date. But just not enough copies were selling to keep it feasable. I can understand it being a tough sell, both because of the scope of the project, and because his approach to narrative is a love it or hate it for a lot of people. But as someone who was reeeeeaalllly loving the series and felt like it was exciting, and had enormous potential, I was sad to see it scuppered. Very, very cool concept, that was just kind of on the verge of showing how it would all come together later in the series.
Occasionally lightning will strike at r/WritingPrompts and you’ll get a 100 entry story that is a ton of fun. Bonus if the author is responsive to comments and a small community grows and chats about the story as it is written.
I’ve been reading several of Wildbow’s web serials in real time as they release a couple chapters per week. It’s a fun format for sure.
There are currently many many web serial novels that are written by authors ranging from really amateur to somewhat established (many novels in the last years).
In all of these, chapters come out anywhere from weekly to a handful every couple months, depending on the author throughput and desire to edit. This is similar to old serials that would come out one chapter at a time (ala Dickens).
[Top web fiction](http://topwebfiction.com) has a weekly ranking of the top ones. Some of them are over, some of them are current (but have a large backlog).
If you’re looking for one that you can start and read along as it comes out, Wildbow (the author of Worm, and currently Pale) is finishing their current novel and will likely soon start a new one. You probably can find more information in r/parahumans.
I’m also doing Dracula Daily!
I’ve seen others that go along with the timeline of the book, but I haven’t tried them yet.
There’s also Serial Reader. It’s all public domain stuff, but there are so many options. It tells you how many days it’ll be and you can pick the time of day it shows up for you. I started The Moonstone with it last year but couldn’t keep up. I think other titles might work better (for me personally. I think The Moonstone should work well, I just struggled).
It’s sort of cheating, because the book is already written, polished, edited, etc. but when Sanderson puts out a new cosmere book, Tor will serialize the first part (1/5 or so) of it weekly until the release date.
And it’s a great time every time, to the point I almost wish the full book could be released like that. I pay waaaay more attention to small details only reading 1 chapter per week, vs continuing on until the end
George can’t be arsed to write anything unless HBO’s involved.
Damn, I remember writing on wattpad as a teen. It was so much fun. i had a small following, about 70-80 people, but it was awesome to put up a chapter and read people’s opinions and predictions before the next one.
Serialized storytelling is popular in Japan. I’ve read some novels that were serialized online, then packaged (and translated) into English novels. Of course by that point you can’t tell when each section stopped so it doesn’t feel serialized. I guess per chapter? Japan also has “cell phone” novels, which are passed by text message. They’re not that short, but each text is, obviously, very short.
I think serialization was more popular before we had “modern” bookstores. Buying magazines which serialized stories was pretty common. But today, I think people would rather just order a book all at once from Amazon, either in physical or ebook format.
Comic books (both western and manga) are often serialized. I guess it’s just part of the style. You can often get graphic novels after the fact. (In Japan, you can often get manga chapter by chapter before official volumes come out, which is a bit like a western graphic novel, I guess.)
I often read ‘webnovels’ that come out each week through apps. I read them in Korean, or there are many translated into English from Korean or Chinese. Very popular in Asia.
It’s honestly so fun to have a community to react to each chapter together! Its like a lazy book club since I can scroll through others comments and see their theories, etc. and participate if I want to. imo it’s similar to watching a tv series as it airs— they often end each week’s chapter with some sort of cliffhanger, which I think might be less common in books that come out all together at once.
I wish this became a thing for English writers though, specifically through an app. I could never get into Wattpad, but I hear that it could be similar to that.
The writing couple behind Ilona Andrews used a serial fiction release mode for some of their Innkeeper books. They released chapters at a time, and then rereleased it as a full book.
I couldn’t bear to wait on a chapter at a time though. I tend to read a book in a day or two, and I’ll reread whole books before reading a sequel.
Asia has a ton of serialized web novels, like China on JJWXC and other websites. I know they’re big in Japan and Korea too 🙂
You can find info on where to read translations on Novelupdates, and many get published in English (as physical books) as well. Some are translated concurrently and some are translated after the serial is finished. A warning though, most of them are looooooong. We’re talking wordcounts in the millions.
I read Stephen King’s serialized novel “The Plant.” He never finished it. I was not happy.
I’m a long-time comic book reader so serialized fiction is my wheelhouse.
Hell, the bar none most successful film franchise of all time (the MCU) is serialized fiction.