What's It Called...

[DonnaDuck]

...when you have a novel and each chapter in that novel can be it's own story? Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is a story like that and I know there's a name for it. Or I'm getting it confused with the type of book that Don Quixote is which escapes me at the moment but it's not what I'm talking about. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Am I coherent?

[Azure Skye]

The only thing that comes to mind is: Episodic.

[DonnaDuck]

That sounds familiar. Must Google...

[Williebee]

Are you thinking of vignettes?

[DonnaDuck]

No, an episodic is closer to what I'm thinking off. The Things They Carried is really the best example I have off the top of my head. All of the chapters are connected, heavily, yet they can all be read as individual stories without losing any of the meaning.

[Fox The Cave]

You mean like the Canterbury Tales?

I don't think there's a word for it, other than 'like-Hyperion' or 'Canterbury-Tales-esque'.

[WittyandorIronic]

Episodic Novel - an actual literary term, is the best I can find as well. Tim O'Brien and the even more authoratative Spark Notes :) list the book as "inter-related short stories".

[Rolling Thunder]

I was thinking of anthology.

[Maryn]

An anthology is by multiple authors, I thought. (A collection is by a single author, but the stories need not connect in any way.)

Maryn, just saying

[astonwest]

Serial?

[amber_grosjean]

I wrote a book like that. Each chapter had its own theme but it was suppose to be related and you can't skip chapters because they don't carry on alone so its not quite the same thing as what you're talkng about but very similar. A publisher thought I could make a different book from the chapters but I don't agree. Each day is different and different things happen to people each day so I wanted it to be more life-like in that sense. I'm going to rewrite it though because I want to escape the YA audience and just go adult now.

Amber

[JoNightshade]

Episodic - A novel composed of standalone short stories which are interrelated in some way.

Frame Narrative - A novel composed of many shorter stories inside the framework of a larger story that includes them somehow. This would be Cantebury Tales. I believe you could also say that The Princess Bride is a frame narrative. There are actually two frames in that story: the novelist writing down his memories (and pretending to be simply annotating a manuscript), the grandfather telling the story to the novelist as a child, and the story of Buttercup and Wesley.

[DonnaDuck]

Thanks everyone. I do believe an episodic is the closest thing to what I'm looking for although there is a term I'm grasping at and Don Quixote keeps popping into mind. It's not really related to this but there's a term used for the way that story is written.

[CaroGirl]

I always think of episodic as more like scenes within the same story. Any regular novel might be episodic in its telling. Story collections I've read where the stories are linked I wouldn't call "episodic." Collection of interwoven stories, thematically linked, maybe? It depends on what links the stories, theme, characters, place, time?

[mikeland]

I believe the trendy term for it is "novel in stories." I've also seen this referred to as a collection of linked stories. Generally this means that each chapter stands alone as a story, but that the same characters, settings, events, etc., appear throughout.

[Pomegranate]

Is the word you're looking for Picaresque?

pic·a·resque adj.
1) pertaining to, characteristic of, or characterized by a form of prose fiction, originally developed in Spain, in which the adventures of an engagingly roguish hero are described in a series of usually humorous or satiric episodes that often depict, in realistic detail, the everyday life of the common people: picaresque novel; picaresque hero.
2) of, pertaining to, or resembling rogues.

[DonnaDuck]

Is the word you're looking for Picaresque?

pic·a·resque adj.
1) pertaining to, characteristic of, or characterized by a form of prose fiction, originally developed in Spain, in which the adventures of an engagingly roguish hero are described in a series of usually humorous or satiric episodes that often depict, in realistic detail, the everyday life of the common people: picaresque novel; picaresque hero.
2) of, pertaining to, or resembling rogues.

That might be Don Quixote but not pertaining to my work, although it is somewhat similar to my story although my MC is neither roguish or a hero.