Thursday, July 12, 2012

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: SERIAL STORYTELLING EDITION

There's a brand new idea in publishing!

Apparently, according to Dear Author, stories can be told in serial form!  I know!  What a wacky, innovative, and new idea!  (In all seriousness, Dear Author mentions that Dickens started out writing serials, so they know the score.)

It's other authors who believe they've stumbled upon a completely unique form of storytelling.

An editor from Tor.com explains:

“The Human Division will be an experiment: an episodic novel, released initially in digitial, serialized form. Currently the plan is to publish these episodes weekly in, roughly, December 2012 through February 2013. Like the episodes of a good high-end cable drama, each one will have enough internal integrity to work as an enjoyable chunk of story on its own, but each will advance a “season”-long storyline as well.

Yup.  High-end cable drama.  That is the ONLY genre of television that has ever told stories in serialized form Can't think of any other ones....
 
Obviously, I'm being a tiny bit (okay, a lot) sarcastic.  And obviously, I have a dog in the hunt.  My novel, "Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga (Volume One)" is a romantic series.  One in which the readers actually have a chance to vote on where the story will go next.

Based on the comments Dear Author received, readers aren't interested in series.  They assert that they hate cliff-hangers and waiting to find out how the story ends.

I suspect these readers are not soap fans.  So I put the question to you: How do you feel about serials in book form?

Let me know in the Comments below!

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