A Question about Serials

CathleenT · Dec 23, 2016

Serials. All I’ve really done to research them is pop into kboards and read some of the threads on them.

I was interested in them as a growth project, originally coming out of studying Rowling. Why was she such a success? The Hero’s Journey and the Chosen One are hardly unique tropes in a genre that prizes distinctiveness. And her writing is solid, but not anything that makes me clutch the book and blink because a passage was so beautiful.

I came to the conclusion that it must be the plotting. She had seven distinct arcs that combined into a whole. This isn’t an easy thing to do.

So I thought I’d practice the same thing with short stories, which is where I usually try anything new. If I could write seven to ten short stories, all around 7k or so, I’d end up with a novel at the end, and seven to ten episodes I could self-pub separately. I pictured these things as stand-alones, each with a complete arc, in the spirit of trying to emulate Rowling.

I’ve written the first and put it through the SYW critters (many thanks to all the faithful squirrels), and plotted out about five of them, with post-it level ideas for three more.

And then my husband brought home Outlander for me to watch.

I know this series is popular, and I’m sorry if the following bugs anyone. It’s a bit above my likes and dislikes, anyway. Who am I, after all? I’ve got one self-published collection of short stories and a spot in four anthologies. And I basically know squat about promotion, which is depressing because I’ve spent a year studying it.

Anyway, apart from all the rape and the passive protag (the tale didn’t turn around the protag at all until late in the second part of the season), what really bugged me were all the cliffhanger endings. I ranted to my husband about it. (He just smiled and put the next episode on.)

I haven’t read serials. I don’t know what the accepted format for them is. I’d be happy to amend this if anyone can give me intelligent, reasonably clean fantasy recommendations. I look for stuff that’s inherently positive, even if the ending is bittersweet. I don’t mind if they’re your stories. I’ll even review them.

I don’t mind cliffhanger endings at times. I loved Amber (Zelazny), both series, even though they only resolved at the end of each five-book series. It was the steady diet of them in Outlander that got to me. As if they couldn’t be bothered to finish arcs.

But is this the standard expectation in writing serials? If everyone is expecting cliffhangers, it seems counterproductive to structure it as 7-10 complete arcs. I should just write the novel since 7k is awfully long for chapters. If writing in complete arcs is a grace note that won’t matter to anyone else, and may in fact annoy readers who’ve come to expect something else, it doesn’t seem like a great idea.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

WriterBN · Dec 25, 2016

I've never done serials, but at least one author on the KDP boards has been successful with them. The key seems to be consistent, regular output (and quality writing in a hot genre, of course).

chompers · Dec 25, 2016

Isn't that what defines a serial? It's ongoing.

playground · Dec 26, 2016

In regards to Rowlng, I think her greatest strength is honestly her world building/atmosphere. Her Harry Potter books were phenomenal when it came to having the possibility of the wizarding world be something that if you looked JUST RIGHT you might see it or a glimpse of it. Between her use of language (muggles, butterbeer, squib, etc.) and how clear the world was helped in its popularity. Rowling's world was very well defined and thought through (obviously there were a few plotholes or such here and there with timeturners and such).

LucidCrux · Dec 31, 2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Novels_first_published_in_serial_form

I have zero experience with the publishing, but I watch a lot of tv which is inherently more serial than text nowadays. I think the serial form is complicated and can be approached in three main ways. One is to produce a "Serial", another is to tell a story that happens to be told in a serial medium, and the last is to tell a series of linked stories.

Shows like Lost gave "Serial" shows a big boost, and a lot of genre shows now use cliffhangers more frequently especially when they are aiming for the serial crowd. That would be the first approach. Cliffhangers are almost a given for season finales as well.

The middle option is a bit harder to find a good modern equivalent of, but the link above has many classic novels that started as serial publications. They generally did chapter at a time, I think. Much shorter series, especially British shows like Sherlock or recent Netflix offerings, might be examples. Each episode stops at logical places, but stringing them together into one big 8-10 hour movie would seem totally natural. Each episode is essentially a chapter and watching them out of order doesn't work as well.

Cop/medical/etc dramas and other "procedurals" take the last form and can be highly successful but tend to draw criticism as being more low brow and cookie cutter. Thus the moniker. I don't think a lot of people would actual call these serial at all even if you can find ocassional big arcs and connecting stories. To me, this is basically how some series like Goosebumps or Agatha Christie work. A series rather than a serial.

Something a bit older like Stargate might be a good example of a hybrid (plus I'm a huge fan). Each episode is relatively watchable on its own as long as you have a general idea of the timeline or characters, but there are a lot of bigger arcs that happen as well without requiring cliffhangers (except at season ends or two-parters).

All can be highly successful, at least on tv, so there are fans of all forms. I watch the first two pretty exclusively, but have been struck by a couple of the third. It depends on what you want to write and how well the story you want to tell will work in that form. Forcing a form on to a story that isn't a natural fit will turn readers away.

With cliffhangers specifically, I'm of the opinion that too much of anything is bad. They are excellent tools if used right, though. You might also consider that the more you lean toward option one, the less forgiving readers will be of missed deadlines and delays which could lead to being 1 star bombed.

And BTW outlander is just an absolutely terrible example to use because it is popular for being "mom porn" rather than being a good story. It got picked up after the success of 50 shades of grey. Romance is sort of an impossible genre to compete with. There are people on the kboard making thousands of dollars a month writing crappy romance series your average high schooler would tear to bits. If you just want to make money, write romance. (And just so I don't get attacked, no, I'm not saying all romance is bad.)

Write it how you want. If it's good, people will recognize that. For more, you have to be either lucky or a rare exceptional talent (which even Stephen King, for example, does not consider himself).

CathleenT · Jan 1, 2017

Thanks so much, everyone. Sorry I've been so long getting back to this. I'm out of town, and my husband was away with the only laptop that connects to the internet.

As far as the nature of serials goes, chompers--that's really what I'm asking about. Are there multiple forms, at least in a modern context?

Serialized novels go back at least to the nineteenth century. They were the bane of authors, as I understand it. Many newspapers just printed a chapter of a novel in their publication each week and didn't bother paying the author anything. All the author got out of it was exposure.

*sighs* And now we post stories and entire books online for free. Truly the French had it right. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Anyway, I'm not including serialized novels in this discussion, not really. Any novel could be serialized by chapter, so it doesn't seem to require any elucidation. The form of the novel doesn't change whether it's serialized or not.

I don't watch much TV--okay, change that to hardly ever. We don't have regular television reception in the hollow in the foothills where I live, and I don't care enough about it to pay a cable bill. I'd rather read, or if I'm in the mood for video, watch a movie.

But it was actually a TV series that got me thinking along these lines. BBC put out several years of The Musketeers that I thought was mostly brilliant (they had a few episodes with world-building blarts that are too anachronistic for me to swallow). But overall, I found the thing very well done.

And I thought, "I want to write something like that. Ten episodes that mostly stand alone and resolve into a whole." It struck me as a nifty writing challenge, similar to the thoughts I'd been having concerning Rowling.

As far as world-building goes, Rowling had a layered, nuanced world with a lot of thought behind it. But that seems to be the rule rather than the exception for what I consider "good" fantasy. McKillip did this in every single book she wrote, with incredible style and elegance that does make me clutch the book because it's so beautiful. And then I despair that I can ever write anything that good. I can give numerous other examples of other writers doing the same thing. I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like solid world-building is the magic element, although it certainly matters.

None of McKillip's books have ever been made into movies. But she never wrote a seven-part series, either.

Still, that's only one factor. Maybe there are too many factors, and trying to run a sloppy canonical correlation isn't getting the job done. (I was trained as a social scientist, and I still tend to "run home" to that skill set.)

Concerning, kboards, I noticed that most of their serials are romances. But romances are a huge part of the market. My novels generally have romances, but they're not the main plot. If you have to put my novels in a box, they're fantasy or historical fantasy if you want to get that precise.

What I consider the most successful serials of all time are the Sherlock Holmes stories. They were so popular that the same characters are still used today. Except for the novel serializations (which I noted as an exception above), they were all complete arcs. People wanted to read the next one because they liked the characters--Holmes and Watson, not because they ended at the edge of a cliff.

And they were written, what? A hundred and forty years ago.

Still, if Lisa Cron is right and we're all hardwired to respond to certain types of stories in particular, the timeline would be irrelevant.

And then again, the lady could be wrong and I'm just stuck in my own personal time warp with my literary tastes. It's an unattractive alternative, but worthy of consideration.

Thanks for all the input on TV, which is background info I lack.

*sighs* It sounds like nobody really knows what works, or maybe it's that multiple things do. Put it out there and hope it flies. I was hoping research could up my odds on this one.

J. Tanner · Jan 1, 2017

CathleenT said:
*sighs* It sounds like nobody really knows what works, or maybe it's that multiple things do. Put it out there and hope it flies. I was hoping research could up my odds on this one.

Short answer is that all cliffhangers or no cliffhangers or a mix can work. It's still all about whether readers have been sucked in by the story.

Poorly done cliffhangers often get some bad reviews. Even well done ones can get some pushback if you sell a lot. This should be expected, and can be valuable in setting reader expectations so you weed out the readers who don't like them. You might even do it yourself at the end of the description. (Note: "This serialized story contains cliffhangers at the end of each episode.")

FWIW, I like cliffhangers as long as the author isn't 'cheating' the reader expectations. I expect that something will be resolved in each episode and whatever the episode promises, it delivers. Then the cliffhanger sets up the new problem that the next episode tackles.

So, for example, if the episode's description sells it as an alien invasion then the cliffhanger better not be the arrival of the first threatening alien. If the reader is promised a love triangle, then don't cliffhang at the first appearance of the second suitor. And so on. Give the reader what they expect, resolve it, then tease the EVEN MORE DIFFICULT problem in the cliffhanger. The alien has been defeated through the hero's ingenuity, but 'oh no!' a hundred more alien ships just appeared in the sky. Or 'oh no!' the hero has been infected with an alien virus. Whatever.

LucidCrux · Jan 1, 2017

J. Tanner said:
I expect that something will be resolved in each episode and whatever the episode promises, it delivers. Then the cliffhanger sets up the new problem that the next episode tackles.

I think that is the key to a successful cliffhanger. I honestly don't think it is possible to continuously produce cliffhangers without running into serious issues, though. There are three main things I see as issues right off the bat.

First, predictability. Writers don't want to be predictable. It's really that simple. If a reader expects it, at some it becomes boring.

Second is fatigue or burnout. Instead of getting bored, there is a possibility that readers can get overwhelmed. Cliffhangers create a sense that the action or tension is always rising, there are no firm resolutions. There is always a "but"; basically the part of the writing method "yes, but; no, and". This is how the middle of stories are created, not resolutions. Rising and falling action is an integral part of storytelling for a reason. The more firm breaks, where reader and characters have time to really recover, can be very important.

And finally, the "all at once" or "binge" crowd will see this and decide to give up until there is a solid stopping point. You can see this on TV all the time and it is becoming more and more prevalent. A person will avoid watching a show until either the season or the entire show is over, and then they will finally settle in to watch it. A book is essentially a season. There will still be people who want to wait for the whole series, but at least you can get part of the binge crowd. Maybe there are 15 books, but each three are individual trilogies or something. Let those people have their "complete" story even if it is part of an even bigger one. If you want a literary example, there are a ton of people waiting on Martin to finish Fire and Ice before they jump in, and there were a ton that did the same with Wheel of Time.

WeaselFire · Jan 1, 2017

Serial or series? You mention serials but your examples are a series.

Jeff

frimble3 · Jan 2, 2017

Just don't do what G.R.R. Martin seems to have done: sucked readers in with few good books, promising a big wrap to all the suggested storylines, then stop producing them.
I swear, I think he's waiting for the T.V. writers to wrap things up for him. I know the current wisdom is 'Martin is not your bitch', that he can 'create' in his own good time, but that loooog wait for closure peeves the readers, who may move on to other things.
Like watching glaciers melt.
If this is the first time you're trying this, I'd suggest finishing the whole thing, all the episodes, first. Then publish. This also gives you time to make adjustments to the story, not write yourself into a corner, decide where the breaks work best, etc. And, FWIW, I'd rather read a series of complete stories about the same characters, a la Sherlock Holmes, than cliffhanger after cliffhanger.

WriterBN · Jan 2, 2017

frimble3 said:
FWIW, I'd rather read a series of complete stories about the same characters, a la Sherlock Holmes, than cliffhanger after cliffhanger.

Speaking of Holmes, one that ended with a (almost literal) cliffhanger, until readers demanded resolution.

But yes, I much prefer series to serials (for books; I don't watch TV).

frimble3 · Jan 2, 2017

Yes, but until Doyle tried to end it all, the stories were self-contained.

tommyb · Jan 3, 2017

"Serial or series? You mention serials but your examples are a series.

Jeff"
This.
If you are looking to study serials, why not go to a library and check some out? Green Mile- S King, Zoo- J Patterson...however these aren't good representations of good serial writing, they are the modern equivalent.

RightHoJeeves · Jan 3, 2017

CathleenT said:
As far as world-building goes, Rowling had a layered, nuanced world with a lot of thought behind it. But that seems to be the rule rather than the exception for what I consider "good" fantasy. McKillip did this in every single book she wrote, with incredible style and elegance that does make me clutch the book because it's so beautiful. And then I despair that I can ever write anything that good. I can give numerous other examples of other writers doing the same thing. I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like solid world-building is the magic element, although it certainly matters.

Honestly I don't think it's really worth ever bringing up Rowling in discussions about publishing. She's an outlier in every sense of the world, and I don't think anyone can really explain her success other than the books struck lightning with the right people at the right time and then it all went crazy.

And I thought, "I want to write something like that. Ten episodes that mostly stand alone and resolve into a whole."

Is that not just a novel? With novels I think mostly serialization is just a form of publishing a book. It's actually quite similar to how TV/radio shows were broadcast. One chapter/episode a week with an ongoing story. I think that's a little different to Harry Potter being a serial. You could serialize it chapter by chapter... but I would say overall its just a series.

Anyway I think its largely semantics. Whatever made Harry Potter or Sherlock Holmes mega popular probably wasn't because of their structure like that. More because they were just great stories at the right time.

tommyb · Jan 4, 2017

RightHoJeeves said:
Honestly I don't think it's really worth ever bringing up Rowling in discussions about publishing. She's an outlier in every sense of the world, and I don't think anyone can really explain her success other than the books struck lightning with the right people at the right time and then it all went crazy.

It has been shown that she is extremely shrewd. She took a gamble and it paid off in spades.
She knew magic stories for that age group was a coming thing.
She scoured indie releases until she found a really bad one that could be fixed.
She fixed it and she polished it, and she submitted it.

The woman she ripped off had a great case, but waited way to long to bring it. If she had sued with the first Potter book, and didn't wait years and more books in and mountains of money made, the saga would probably have played out differently. As with all copyrights, trademarks, and patents;they must be actively protected or you lose out, or worse.

AW Admin · Jan 4, 2017

tommyb said:
It has been shown that she is extremely shrewd. She took a gamble and it paid off in spades.
She knew magic stories for that age group was a coming thing.
She scoured indie releases until she found a really bad one that could be fixed.
She fixed it and she polished it, and she submitted it.

The woman she ripped off had a great case, but waited way to long to bring it. If she had sued with the first Potter book, and didn't wait years and more books in and mountains of money made, the saga would probably have played out differently. As with all copyrights, trademarks, and patents;they must be actively protected or you lose out, or worse.

Oh look! It's an obnoxious lame-ass troll.

andiwrite · Jan 5, 2017

J. Tanner said:
FWIW, I like cliffhangers as long as the author isn't 'cheating' the reader expectations. I expect that something will be resolved in each episode and whatever the episode promises, it delivers. Then the cliffhanger sets up the new problem that the next episode tackles.

So, for example, if the episode's description sells it as an alien invasion then the cliffhanger better not be the arrival of the first threatening alien. If the reader is promised a love triangle, then don't cliffhang at the first appearance of the second suitor. And so on. Give the reader what they expect, resolve it, then tease the EVEN MORE DIFFICULT problem in the cliffhanger. The alien has been defeated through the hero's ingenuity, but 'oh no!' a hundred more alien ships just appeared in the sky. Or 'oh no!' the hero has been infected with an alien virus. Whatever.

Thanks for explaining this. I've been wondering if the semi-cliffhanger I have planned for the first book in my series will work, and according to this, it will.

Polenth · Jan 5, 2017

andiwrite said:
Thanks for explaining this. I've been wondering if the semi-cliffhanger I have planned for the first book in my series will work, and according to this, it will.

I'd add the caution that there's a difference between a cliffhanger in a series and in a serial. That's one reason why people have queried which we're really talking about here. In a serial, it's expected that the next part will come quickly, so the cliffhanger will quickly be resolved. Even so, not everyone likes cliffhangers, but it is at least somewhat expected.

In a series, the next part could take time, and will cost a reasonable amount because it's a longer work. Readers may not continue to read an author who ends their novels on cliffhangers. There's a big difference between having a few open plot threads for later in the series and having a cliffhanger.

CathleenT · Jan 6, 2017

Series vs. serial is really the whole decision I'm trying to hammer out. Or at least, if I can market a series like a serial.

Sherlock Holmes was a series (usually). It was also incredibly popular.

It seems like there are a lot of people who've written serials for the KDP select program on the kboards. They spoke of writing serials mainly for the income from pages borrowed and read, or at least as though that was a significant part of their income from their stories. I was wondering if I could do the same thing with a series.

J Tanner made an excellent point about fulfilling the promise to the reader in each episode, and I think it applies whether that episode resolves in its own arc or not. Thanks.

And RightHo, I indeed believe I'll have a novel when I'm done. I'm just trying to decide on the structure before I begin, which is nothing I've done before, other than novel vs. short story. I'm not such a plotting savant that I can wing it and end up with 7k chapters that always resolve but leave the situation open to future action. I'm not even sure I can plan my way to such a place because I haven't done it yet.

Anyway, since writing a series of cliffhangers doesn't appeal to me (it bugged the crud out of me watching Outlander), the choice is really between trying to structure this thing into separate arcs (the episode approach) or just writing the novel like I would any other. 7k makes for quite long chapters in a typical novel. OTOH, I don't think I can justify asking even $.99 cents for something much shorter, so if I'm going to serialize it in any fashion, it has to be with longer stories.

And plus there's the whole cool writing challenge carrot. I may be cursing myself partway through for thinking it would be satisfying, but for now, at least, the idea is still shiny. Which is a cautionary note all on its own, but I haven't written anything but short stories for a year and a half, and I'd really like to dig into something with some more complexity.

I certainly don't expect the kind of success that Rowling or Doyle experienced. But I'm trying to avoid anonymity as well, and I was wondering if writing to this format might increase my visibility when I publish. Y'know, 8-11 releases instead of just one. Episodes and omnibus volume.

And the whole thing is definitely going to be finished before anything's published. The thought of getting stuck partway through is mind-numbingly terrifying enough that I wouldn't chance it.

Thanks everyone who's weighed in and reps all around, of course.

Marissa D · Jan 6, 2017

CathleenT, I've been following this thread with interest because I also have a--a thing that I'm not sure how to classify--series or serial or something else. Each segment has its own plot and resolution, but there's also a larger plot and other plot elements that develop over the individual segments (which are in the 20-27k word range so far--I'm on the sixth.) No cliffhangers, though I haven't ruled out using one or two toward the very end.

To borrow a phrase, it's a puzzlement.

WeaselFire · Jan 8, 2017

The true era of the serial is long past, now days it's called a TV show. There are a number of serialized novels, which is where I'd place some of the things mentioned like Stephen King's work and James Patterson's attempts. The main issue with serials is getting paid for them. You won't easily find a traditional publisher, even one who does ebooks, looking to commit to a serial. You might fins some of the graphic novel publishers interested, but they would need illustration which kind of kills your income too. So you're left with KDP and the like where, traditionally at least, nobody buys the serials unless you already have a big name and published work. Those who publish for borrowed pages payments quickly get a bad rep because readers feel cheated in most serials.

The reason serials worked was the publishing of the time, magazines with serials that came out weekly or monthly were eagerly bought by people who didn't want to buy books when the magazines had a number of stories and were less expensive. In the days of 99 cent Kindle books, those magazines have little market and are better served by short stories than serials.

Keep in mind, a serial will normally complete last issue's cliffhanger and set the hero up for another tough spot in each issue. If you can't commit to regularly publication, then a serial doesn't work well. If you want to gain a following, write it as fanfic or a blog first so you have an audience who will pay later.

Jeff

CathleenT · Jan 10, 2017

Thanks, Marissa and Jeff. I just found something I think is relevant to the discussion. In a SYW critique I recommended to someone that they check out the Brandon Sanderson writing videos on youtube. I had to go there myself to paste the link, and I discovered they've posted an updated version, filmed this year.

So I went on a Sanderson instruction binge--a useful education I highly recommend, both the earlier stuff and the more recent. In the last video of twelve (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1LwUlrDdU0&t=15s), about 55 minutes in, Brandon recommends writing in shorter episodes for writers who are self-publishing, although the ones he specifically mentioned were novella length, which is good news for Marissa.

I may have to expand my horizons and try to write novellas instead. But I've never written one. Lots of short stories, eight novels, but nothing in between.

At any rate, though, Sanderson made it clear these had complete arcs, rather than being cliffhanger serials. So it's being published serially (the example given was an epic fantasy in six novellas, with a complete volume at the end), but it's not a serial, not in the classic sense. Other writers are making it work.

That at least is good news for me, since complete arcs were what I had planned.

Anyway, the new Sanderson series is well worth watching, so I recommend checking it out.

Marissa D · Jan 10, 2017

CathleenT said:
Thanks, Marissa and Jeff. I just found something I think is relevant to the discussion. In a SYW critique I recommended to someone that they check out the Brandon Sanderson writing videos on youtube. I had to go there myself to paste the link, and I discovered they've posted an updated version, filmed this year.

So I went on a Sanderson instruction binge--a useful education I highly recommend, both the earlier stuff and the more recent. In the last video of twelve (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1LwUlrDdU0&t=15s), about 55 minutes in, Brandon recommends writing in shorter episodes for writers who are self-publishing, although the ones he specifically mentioned were novella length, which is good news for Marissa.

I may have to expand my horizons and try to write novellas instead. But I've never written one. Lots of short stories, eight novels, but nothing in between.

At any rate, though, Sanderson made it clear these had complete arcs, rather than being cliffhanger serials. So it's being published serially (the example given was an epic fantasy in six novellas, with a complete volume at the end), but it's not a serial, not in the classic sense. Other writers are making it work.

That at least is good news for me, since complete arcs were what I had planned.

Anyway, the new Sanderson series is well worth watching, so I recommend checking it out.

I really need to watch those some day! Thank you for this--that format (a set of novellas completed by a novel-length installment to end it) is what I'm looking at.

deafblindmute · Jan 11, 2017

I am seriously intrigued by the prospect of writing a serial. I am truly considering it. I feel that I tend to write a lot very fast, so, while stressful, it would be pretty engaging and exciting.

Super_Duper · Jan 16, 2017

Fun fact: The Martian by Andy Weir originally ran serialized (self-pubbed) on his website.

A Question about Serials

CathleenT

I write

WriterBN

chompers

playground

LucidCrux

Write like there's no tommorowe.

CathleenT

I write

J. Tanner

LucidCrux

Write like there's no tommorowe.

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

WriterBN

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

tommyb

RightHoJeeves

tommyb

AW Admin

andiwrite

Polenth

Mushroom

CathleenT

I write

Marissa D

Scribe of the girls in the basement

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member

CathleenT

I write

Marissa D

Scribe of the girls in the basement

deafblindmute

Super_Duper

Jedi Knight