Serial Fiction?

People have been trying to relaunch serials as a big thing online for the last 20 years or so. Mostly unsuccessfully. I would suggest looking at those attmpts to learn what doesn't work as part of trying to find what does (Stephen King, You Write On, etc).

A lot of people write serial fiction, but most of what I've seen is aimed at the cell phone crowd.

I do, however, think writing serial fiction is kind of a false premise. Serial fiction is just fiction that you give readers a little bit at a time.

If there's a real pitfall, it's that too many writers don't finish a story before they start posting the pieces. This often leads to a lot of bad stories being serialized, stories never finished at all, etc. One small case of "writer's block", or some kind of non-writing emergency, and you're screwed. Far, far worse, you just screwed the readers.

Finish the entire story, polish the crap out of the entire story, and then start putting up the pieces.

I think The Galactic Seven works well as a serial. It fits my writing style and that's the sort of thing that goes through my mind when I'm writing. My stories are episodic by nature. That's the kind of books I've always loved. Edgar Rice Burroughs is my inspiration and, of course, most of his novels started as serials. Now, each book in the Galactic Seven series are stand alone novels. They are a series, not a serial. But each novel would work as a serial. I guess most any story could, but I would love to have one of my novels serialized.

I've serialized the stuff I've posted on Wattpad (see sig) though I admit I'm not really a big fan of serialized fiction. My memory isn't the greatest. I'd prefer to read something all at once. If I'm reading once I week, I'll forget stuff, and I won't get the full impact of a story. There are only a small number of authors whose stuff I'd even consider reading in serialized format.

For the stuff I've put on Wattpad, I finished and revised the whole story before I started posting. I just do a quick proofread before I post each chapter.

Alexander McCall Smith and Armistead Maupin have both done all right with serial fiction.

LJD said:

I've serialized the stuff I've posted on Wattpad (see sig) though I admit I'm not really a big fan of serialized fiction. My memory isn't the greatest. I'd prefer to read something all at once. If I'm reading once I week, I'll forget stuff, and I won't get the full impact of a story. There are only a small number of authors whose stuff I'd even consider reading in serialized format.

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I feel the same way. When I have attempted to read serialized fiction it's just not all that enjoyable. Reading a tiny bit and then having to wait X amount of time to get the next little bit just isn't fun to me. On top of that, like you said, I end up forgetting stuff as time goes on and then have to go back and reread which takes even more time.

I know it's probably not what you're looking for, but in my mind, fanfic is pretty much a form of serialised fiction. A chapter comes out either once or twice a week, the audience "follows" the story and comes back to read it as it goes along, etc etc.

Its worth noting though that there are a high portion of people who read fanfic who check the little "complete only" box because they wish to avoid the dread of the unfinished abandoned piece.

Online comics seem to do it well though. But again, that's all about having something worthwhile in each update, being consistent with the updates, and paying off on the promises you make your audience.

Well, for what it's worth I serialize a short chapter version of my book via Wattpad. There's no money in it, but so far it's given my an ample amount of reads and feeback and garnered a high ranking in Science Fiction to boot. I'd say it's a great option for first time authors looking to building a following without hazarding the terrors of the publishing industry, but not so much for ones who want to make money off their stuff.