Episodic novels. Are there many around?

What I mean is, each chapter is a story in of itself. It's a novel, but it's not One Big Story with a few subplots, but a different thing happens in each chapter, not necessarily building into any big climax, except the end of the book. MASH the novel comes to mind. The basic story is that Hawkeye, Trapper and Duke are three surgeons in a field MASH in Korea. Wacky things happen until they're discharged after a few months.

I was given a self-printed book by a coworker's wife to read because I was curious about it and offered to read it. His wife wrote it as kind of a memoiristic tale of her years working in a restaurant in the late 1960s and early 70s. He explained that she tried to have it published, but it was rejected. She took it to Kinkos and had a few bound copies made just so she could have a "book." She knows she isn't "really published."

I've read the first hundred pages. It's interesting, but not written well enough for submission. It needs a lot of work: punctuation, grammar, structure, endless "As she did this" type sentences, it's just, well, it reads like a first draft. Once I accepted all the issues, it's kind of an interesting story. But it's not a novel. It's about a young girl who has a baby at 15 and goes to work as a restaurant carhop in 1966 to help support herself and her baby as she lives with her parents who help raise her. The father, kind of a hoodlum, runs off and abandons her. The story folllows her different experiences in the restaurant and the different people she works with. I don't think it's building to a climax, but I am interested in the characters and where things are headed. So, I guess it's somewhat compelling, just not well written.

Is there a market for this kind of book? All names and places have been changed, but it's a look at her life in a restaurant told in episodic form.

I'd like to encourage her to work on it and submit it when it's finished (and maybe visit AW) as long as there's a market for it.

She's in her 60s, I believe. She wrote a book, I'd like to see it get better.

allen

So, episodic novels are considered old fashioned, but "novel in stories" does exist now? Is there much of a market for it? Who publishes it?

allen

Thanks for mentioning these different titles. I'm halfway into the book I mentioned earlier. It has a very interesting story, but is buried by the, um, not-so-good writing. I'm going to encourage her to learn more about writing, try to get her to visit AW and learn, and go back to work on it and make it a strong book. I think it could sell. At least to a smaller publisher.

allen

Isaac Espriu said:

there needs to be a strong intersecting plot that involves all the episodes somehow..

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I agree. So far, it's the main character's growth at the restaurant. She starts as a carhop at 15, over ten years later she's moved into management to another store. I'm halfway through it right now. I don't yet know what happens at the end. A different thing happens in almost every chapter. As I said earlier, it's technically the life story of the author (in the restaurant business) done in a novel format. Names and places have all been changed. It reads like a story, though, which is what I find appealing.

allen