A History and Present of Serial Fiction
I don't just write it; I think about it in this topic-heavy "extra" newsletter.
Light News:
I planned on keeping my emailed posts down to once a month, but… I also wanted to share this article I wrote. If you would like to skip it, go ahead. I’m okay. :)
There are five writing prompts at the very bottom of the page, if you would like to use those.
Do you write or read serial fiction?
I do.
Once upon a time, I had a Wattpad account, and then I had another account for a site that is no longer active in the world, but these sites were both adopters of serialized fiction.
I almost wrote “early” adopters, but that wouldn’t be truth. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens was written first in serialized form in 1836-1837 in 20 installments.
Obviously, this worked for Dickens, as he continued this trend with Oliver Twist (1837-1839), Nicholas Nickelby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), Barnaby Rudge (Feb. 1841-November 1841), Martin Chuzzlewit (1842-44), Dombey and Son (1846-1848), David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (April 1854-August 1854), Little Dorrit (1855-1857), A Tale of Two Cities (April 1859-November 1859), Great Expectations (1860-1861), Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (April 1870-September 1870). While I did read an article that stated The Christmas Carol was published this same way, I did not find evidence of that in my research.
Each of these works were eventually published as novels and some even had alternate endings for them, including Great Expectations. There is a happy ending and sad ending for this novel, and while I wanted the happy ending, I could understand why Dickens originally wanted the sad one because it suited the story better even if it didn’t please the serial readers.
Charles Dickens wasn’t the only author who utilized serial fiction to grow his audience, to work out whether or not audiences liked his plotlines (or endings), and to work his way through his drafts, earning money as he did so.
Other notable books from the 1800s published in serial form first include: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844-1846), Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery (1847-1848), Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1851-1852), North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1854-1855), Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (October 1856-December 1856), The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1859-1860), Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (January 1866-December 1866), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (1869-1870), Middle March by George Eliot (1871-1872), Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1875-1877), The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (1880-1881), Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1881-1882), and The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (published through 1897).
The trend continued into the 1900s with these (and more) book titles: The Hound of Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1901-1902), The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (February 1905-November 1905), The Nine-tailed Turtle by Zhang Chuntau (1906-1910), The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1909-1910), The Secret Garden by Frances Hodges Burnett (1910-1911), Ulysses by James Joyce (1918-1920), The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maughaw (1924-1925), Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (May 1929-October 1929), Laughter in the Dark by Vladmir Nabokov (1931-1932), Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (January 1934-April 1934), In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965-1966), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (A Two-Part Series in 1971), and Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (1984-1985).
Serial fiction has a history, but what does this have to do with readership today?
When blogging began in 1993, serial fiction and nonfiction began a new age. Authors began to write short stories, poems, and serial fiction on their blogs. Readers actually read these. While blogs have changed and become more commercial, there are over 31 million active blog users as of 2020, although authors also write on Medium, Substack, or other social media platforms. Twitter serial fiction (“X” fiction?) became popular for a short duration, and writers continue to write hint fiction or bite-sized story lengths for standalone and serial fiction stories, published in various ezines and small press publications.
Wattpad was started in a garage in 2006 by Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen as a new way for people to share stories. This idea caught on with many writers, and some have found a following and fame through writing with Wattpad. In 2011, Wattpad hit 1 million users and have 5 million stories. Readers discovered books they liked and explored different areas of reading they hadn’t before, enjoying the interactive features of Wattpad. For example, Sarah Rahman states in her article “A Brief and Personal History of Wattpad” (September 1, 2021), “Besides being a safe refuge, Wattpad got rid of any snobbery I had about unpublished books.”
Since the advent of Wattpad, many other serial fiction platforms have popped up and found readership, including Radish, Royal Road, Inkitt, Scribble Hub, Tapas, Moonquill, Webnovel, Yonder, Chapters, and Kindle Vella. Some of these platforms specialize more in one or two genres, while others have serials across all genres including nonfiction. In addition to these, there are serial fiction and nonfiction podcasts, blogs, individual websites, comics, and stories ongoing on social media platforms.
While bookstores are struggling, serial fiction seems to be growing. (I say “seems” because I don’t have numbers - I tried to find data but didn’t find enough to really feel comfortable saying anything stronger than “seems”.)
If I’m an author, “should” I write serial fiction?
There’s a reason the word “should” is inside quotation marks. “Should” is always a loaded word. I don’t know that I think most people “should” read or write in/on any particular medium. I have a love of paperbacks, but I still read eBooks, serial fiction online, e-zines, and via audiobooks.
As a writer, I have discovered I like writing serial fiction. It motivates me to write and publish individual chapters. My writing has become stronger since I started writing serial fiction. It’s possible that’s the case because of the number of words I’ve poured into writing serial fiction, but I also think there is a strength in the style of serials. I have to write an interesting enough “end” to each chapter to bring a reader back for the next chapter. The characters and the storyline have to be continuously compelling. Even if the characters have a “rest from action” kind of chapter, they need to have some kind of reflection or internal struggle going on that keeps a reader engaged.
Having said that, however, I still think there’s a place in The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens that I feel like the overarching plot has been lost in the minutiae of characters doing a small story on the side. With Great Expectations, I think Dickens was backed into a corner to write a happy ending by his serial readers because he had left enough red herrings in the plot for a happy ending, even though the overarching storyline suggested all along that it would be sad.
So, I reflect on my “learning curve” from Kindle Vella serials with caution. I didn’t at first, but I do know that serializations can go sideways, from the examples of history. I don’t want my stories to go sideways. I prefer to start the stories I write on Kindle Vella with half the novel (or more) already written, so I upload revision episodes and not rough draft episodes.
So the question is…
Do you want to read and write serial fiction? It is entirely up to you as a reader and a writer. I suggest reading some of them before starting to write them. You can start by going to Wattpad (that’s where I started, although I no longer have stories there). You can pick out one of my serials, if you would like to. You can always find others, too. The world of serial fiction is broad and vast.
If you would rather read something already finished and produced into book format that started as serial fiction, consider the examples from history, or consider The Martian by Andy Weir, which started as a serialized draft on his blog, or The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling, published first on her website, or Wool by Hugh Howey, written initially as a five-eBook series published independently on Kindle, but now purchasable in an all-in-one printed paperback. Look for what they have in common, despite their differences, and what they do differently, despite all being written first in serial form.
Whether we like it or not, serial fiction is a part of our world. Serial fiction began before television and streaming shows, but I believe streaming shows and television boost the enjoyment of serial fiction reading. We are somewhat used to the serial fiction format given the number of serial fiction shows we consume. I think serial fiction reading might even have a competitive edge because of our viewing habits.
Writing Prompts:
Imagine a character has an inconvenient task ahead of them. What does this character do? How do they handle it?
The sun is going down, but your character is looking forward to the darkness. Why?
What if a spaceship lands on an alien planet, but the air isn’t breathable, and they can’t take off? What happens next?
Imagine a character rolls a story cube and this story cube changes how this character views their reality.
What if instead of a wardrobe, a new group of young people were transported into a magical world via an old subway system?
I enjoy reading serials up to a point. Three in a series is about my max. Interesting history that you set out, Tyrean. I enjoyed reading it.
I've been enjoying releasing my crime novel, A Better Lie, as a serialized novel. I'm finding it gives the characters a little more space to breathe and I like being able to add commentary at the end of each installment. While I have a reasonable amount of paying subscribers to make the whole thing worthwhile, most of them are silent though it appears avid readers or the site.
Serialized fiction is among my favorite ways of telling stories, but then again I've been reading comics for 30 years and most of those are ongoing serials.