On reading serialized novels

[bratfarrar]

When I was a kid, I used to gulp down entire novels in one go. I'd make a game of it: can I read this entire thing before Mom gets back from grocery shopping? and the answer was usually yes. And this mode of reading continued up until I hit college, so I basically spent my entire childhood practicing speed-reading

Comments

[tehta]

20k word chapters on a weekly schedule! Wow! Please tell me the fix is pre-written...

[bratfarrar]

Yes, it is. :)

If I understand correctly, it's been in the works for at least 2 years. The main reason for posting only weekly is that it's giving the author a chance to double-check each chapter for continuity, given that it's gone through 10+ drafts.

[seperis]

There is another reason but it's more esoteric.

Let's say I took the lesson from How I Met Your Mother this year on blind spots; that actually was the reason I started seriously thinking of what I was doing and why I was doing it and if it actually still worked and started worrying.

This is a problem with most book series; knowing your ending and writing toward it is fine, but sometimes the writing doesn't go there even if you want it to and you have to be willing to change or the story stops (or ends up How I Met Your Mother, worse fate imo). And for that matter, see it isn't going there and keep trucking, which for me is nightmare fuel. The trees distract from the forest

[bratfarrar]

This is (potentially) the huge advantage of digital publication over paper: the author can interact with their readers in real time instead of having weeks/months-long lag, by which time it's too late for them to tweak/fix things. Heck, if paper was still the only option, I'd probably have hardly anything written, because I need that near-instant response for the motivation to go and write the next thing. Or finish that story I started feeling ambivalent about halfway through. (Although sometimes it takes a couple of years, I must admit.)

And, as you say, it could/should help the writer avoid something not a lot of people talk about: weak endings. There's lots said about beginnings, but I can think of a whole lot of stories that started strong, began to taper off, and finished rather poorly. (Or, in the case of something like The Chronicles of Prydain, a little too strongly. It's too much of an ending.) But if the writer can track what matters to the audience, and the expectations building off the publishes chapters, they can, as you

[seperis]

This is (potentially) the huge advantage of digital publication over paper: the author can interact with their readers in real time instead of having weeks/months-long lag, by which time it's too late for them to tweak/fix things.

This. In this case, with the bulk written, it's (hopefully) best case scenario of re-prioritizing and being able to clean up honestly labyrinthine plotting to something clearer and more concise. And at least a couple of times, rewrote something I didn't realize was too--different from the rest in style until it was up for posting and I was like "No, wait."

That's the other thing that is a problem and why I'm doing it like this. Emotional continuity is something that has to be checked; i wrote pieces at different times and non-linear going back and forth, so I've had to re-edit to make sure they aren't ahead of themselves.

Heck, if paper was still the only option, I'd probably have hardly anything written, because I need that near-instant response for the motivation to go and write the next thing.

[bratfarrar]

You'd be shocked how many multipage soliloquies on advanced navel gazing became actual necessary character and plot driving points and once I saw what I was trying to do there, it was painless to remove the extra stuff.

I'm hoping the same is true for me, because I have the feeling I'm going to do get through some bits that are going to seem pretty repetitive to my poor beta reader(s) (if I manage to snag myself some). My first attempt at a novel died because of that, I think--I couldn't figure out what was under the wallowing that would be worth keeping. (Well, also, I didn't actually have a plot. At all.) 6 (7?) years later, I realized what I had was actually a short story, and rewrote it from scratch: less than a tenth of the length, but it actually works.

I don't think that's going to be an issue with Things, though. Just a suspicion. Given that Things started as a short story and then started getting too big. Seems auspicious.