Blovels Anyone?
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I'm writing something similar, though my posts tend to the 1500-2500 word range. I've read a lot of online novels posted in installments like this, and I don't think the format works at all for it.
Online serials on the other hand seem to work a lot better. I normally have 3-5 posts per serial installment, and each installment can read as a separate story. So far I've been getting pretty good reads. I even have an offer from a decent sized e-magazine to publish with them (unfortunately it's an unpaying market, but what can I expect when the material is previously published on my blog).
I also don't publish first drafts. Normally I write 2-4 weeks ahead, and give it a pretty good polish before it goes up.
Online serials on the other hand seem to work a lot better. I normally have 3-5 posts per serial installment, and each installment can read as a separate story. So far I've been getting pretty good reads. I even have an offer from a decent sized e-magazine to publish with them (unfortunately it's an unpaying market, but what can I expect when the material is previously published on my blog).
I also don't publish first drafts. Normally I write 2-4 weeks ahead, and give it a pretty good polish before it goes up.
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I did that for awhile--not cliffhangers, but as a set of journal entries written by an explorer in a strange ruin.
It was actually a lot of fun--readers got very engaged in, for example, figuring out what species the main character's companion was!--but I eventually ran out of steam on it. In order to go anywhere worth going, I was going to have to kick up the plot a notch and I didn't see any way of doing that on the fly and not sucking.
It was actually a lot of fun--readers got very engaged in, for example, figuring out what species the main character's companion was!--but I eventually ran out of steam on it. In order to go anywhere worth going, I was going to have to kick up the plot a notch and I didn't see any way of doing that on the fly and not sucking.
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Blook sounds like the sound a bubble rising in boiling mud makes when it finally breaks free. Or, alternatively, a very polite fart.
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: 
Instead of trying to come up with portmanteaus like blovel, novog, or blook, it might be less awkward-sounding to coin an entirely new term altogether. Like "quast."
If you have any links, I sure would like to look at them myself.
I don’t know. I guess I suck at writing. Thanks for correcting me.
I hope you’re right.
Ah, technically, a blook is a regular book that is created from the content of a blog. So, when I finish and remove my blovel, I will then (probably) self-publish it as an e-book and paperback book. It will then be a “blook.”
What would be great is to get a deal with a publisher to publish my blovels as blooks whenever I finish them.
If you start one, let me know, and I will post your link on my blog, and you could do the same with my link on your blog, and the next thing you know there could be this whole web of blovels.
I mean, one good thing about a blovel, and the reason I posted this looking for other blovelists is that one can read several blovels at a time. Most people don’t read several books at one time. I’d love to be reading like ten other blovels right now.
You know, that’s why I tend to think of this as a new literary form, because unlike serial novels that are written and planned out, a blovel is written on the fly, so it’s truly the storyteller’s art form. I have no doubt you could do it again if you wanted to. Finishing the story, however, I believe is the most difficult thing a blovelist has to do. So, I feel your pain.
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I have no idea what you think that means. Is anyone who happens to think about an idea before they write it down not a "true storyteller"?
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Just curious, but where are you finding this info? From a website? Or are these personal terms you've coined?
I searched "define:blook". Turns out he's right. "Blovel" is on Wikipedia. Although of course, being Wikipedia, I'm not sure if one should count it.
...I shouldn't be posting so often, but the concept really interests me. Forgive me if this is arrogant or otherwie wrong, but I think I can see what he means by it being an art form. Not everyone is going to (or even should) do it, but some people will, and it will just be a technique. And by "future of fiction" -- well, not all fiction, but imagine: eblooks! I think that by the time I grow up blovels will be at least a notable percentage of ebooks published.
...I shouldn't be posting so often, but the concept really interests me. Forgive me if this is arrogant or otherwie wrong, but I think I can see what he means by it being an art form. Not everyone is going to (or even should) do it, but some people will, and it will just be a technique. And by "future of fiction" -- well, not all fiction, but imagine: eblooks! I think that by the time I grow up blovels will be at least a notable percentage of ebooks published.
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Is it bad that I want to do this but am too chicken to put something out there that hasn't been edited to hell and back, hasn't been outlined and prewritten several months in advance so that I would reduce the risk of running out of steam before the end because I don't want my name attached to first draft dreck (as I know I can produce)?
edited to add: What I'm finding distressing is all the nitpicking. "well that's really not a blovel, that's a web novel which is totally not the same as a web blog serial, which is not near the same as a blovel serial, which is not the same as a blook which isn't the same as a..."
Christ. I wouldn't even know what to call it.
edited to add: What I'm finding distressing is all the nitpicking. "well that's really not a blovel, that's a web novel which is totally not the same as a web blog serial, which is not near the same as a blovel serial, which is not the same as a blook which isn't the same as a..."
Christ. I wouldn't even know what to call it.
Wait, I'm confused. Is Bob1965 Edward G?
bearilou said:
I agree. What matters is the story not the format.
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The format wouldn't work for me. My first drafts stay in the hard drive or notebook until they are honed. When I'm sort of satisfied with them, they go to my editors, who shred them again and send back the traumatized little pieces. Eventually we come up with something that can be published.
As a commercial artist, I'm amazed at the number of artists and writers still subscribing to the myth that every 'genuine' project must be conceived, attempted, and finished all in the same try. That may work for poetry slams, but it's a chancy way to do anything more involved. Sure, it can show the artist's mind at work. I have friends whose sketchbooks are marvels worthy of museums. But even they have 'D'oh!' moments.
The reality is that only other artists and writers are really interested in process. Readers and viewers often just want to see the final project, and they can get confused or hostile if we ask them to follow the design path instead. I'd let them make that choice, rather than forcing it on them.
Sketches are useful, but not sacred. Neither are first drafts.
As a commercial artist, I'm amazed at the number of artists and writers still subscribing to the myth that every 'genuine' project must be conceived, attempted, and finished all in the same try. That may work for poetry slams, but it's a chancy way to do anything more involved. Sure, it can show the artist's mind at work. I have friends whose sketchbooks are marvels worthy of museums. But even they have 'D'oh!' moments.
The reality is that only other artists and writers are really interested in process. Readers and viewers often just want to see the final project, and they can get confused or hostile if we ask them to follow the design path instead. I'd let them make that choice, rather than forcing it on them.
Sketches are useful, but not sacred. Neither are first drafts.
Yes, and if I understand right, it was just put there by a member of the Writer's Digest forum, who is writing such a novel.
It's no tougher to read several novels at once than it is to read several "blovels" at once, and many people do just this. Including me.
Why would it be tougher to read one chapter of a novel, then a chapter of another novel, than it is to read two blovels at once?
And just which storytellers are you talking about who do everything on the fly? I have a friend who's an oral storyteller, and she writes, rewrites, and practices speaking the story ninety-seven times before anyone actually hears it.
Well, okay, maybe only twenty times, but at least that many.
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Oh, my freakin' Gord. I'd heard about these, but never read them. Having survived retail sales (and I never want to return) I can so understand.
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