What's an Episodic Novel?

Alice in Wonderland is a classic example. Alice falls through a rabbit hole. The plot is Alice trying to get home. On her journey she has a bunch of mini adventures and stories, that really don't further the plot that much, and could even be short stories in and of themselves.

There are many books that are episodic. Think coming of age stories where a kid goes to camp, and each chapter is a new adventure at said camp. Usually there is a main through line, either a location or a character. Usually too there is a basic plot. Go back to the camp idea, maybe the MC meets a boy at camp and likes him and tried to get him. This can be her ultimate goal throughout, but she is also learning how to sail with the counselor who hates her, she gets the lead in the camp show even though she's shy etc etc.

(you can have episodic adult novels too, this is just the first example that came to my head)

I wonder if Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis counts. The narrative is broken into four novellas, with characters passing in and out of them, and the last story tying into the first.

Anything with the subtitle "A novel in stories" is an episodic novel. (I wouldn't call Huckleberry Finn one myself, but there you go.)

Google "A novel in stories" and you'll find other people doing the same thing you're thinking of.

I've always thought of episodic novels pretty much a bad thing unless you are talking about a bunch of short stories. I can't really see Alice in Wonderland but, there's a lot I can't see so pay no attention. My definition is more of a novel that seems to contain a lot of conclusions thru-out the story without a dramatic build and ending. Almost like a chapter by chapter book within a book tied together by a common thread.

Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" is the first thing that came to mind also "From the Dust Returned" also by Bradbury.

AZ_Dawn said:

Thanks, guys! I'm still not sure if an episodic novel is what I'm trying to write, but it sounds close to it. I get feeling from Don Allen's post that most episodic novels out there aren't done well, though.

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Well, Don Allen doesn't seem to like them, but not everything is for everybody.

Have you read any of the "novels in stories" that have been published in the past few years? I can recommend Later, at the Bar by Rebecca Barry and Adverbs by Daniel Handler (a/k/a Lemony Snicket!) and A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That by Lisa Glatt.

Check out John Dufresne's Louisiana Power and Light.

Some recent "G-rated" and "PG-rated" "novels in stories": I Am One of You Forever by Fred Chappell; Olive Kitteridge: A Novel in Stories by Elizabeth Strout.

I'd also include Spencer's Mountain by Earl Hamner (the book that became "The Waltons"), even though it was published long before the "novel in stories" was differentiated as a genre. A somewhat similar work from the UK is Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson.

The James Herriot books are also often considered "episodic novels".

Here's a good article about the "novel in stories" as a genre.

The Hobbit is VERY episodic, and yet each little episode culminates toward the climax.

The actual NEED to the overall plot of each of those lesser episodes isn't quite so obvious to the reader earleir on--it all seems kind of pointless really. But then in the final third of the book, we begin to realize that all the information that was learned via the earlier episodes, and/or the treasures that were gained via them, all come together and work toward the ultimate climax. To me THAT is perhaps the best way to structure an episodic novel. Make it all SEEM kind of pointless until it all starts coming together at the end.



Also, I think The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (and all subsequent sequels) were most definitely eisodic. But those all started of as VERY episodic half-hour radio scripts, and were only later adapted to novel format. The radio scripts were all designed to end with cliff hangers, so the episodic nature of each little story was VERY blatant and thus carried over into the novels.

I believe The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier is eposidic, though it didn't occur to me while reading it.

My mother used to label a miserable flu-like sickness as the Epizoody. Perhaps Episodic novels were used in treating that condition.

Mac