Mastodawn

#WebAuthorsCafe 5: Do you write in serial format? Why or why not?

There are two types of serial format (spelled with an s not a c): 1. Dickensian and 2. Safe.

1) By Dickensian, I am referring to good old Charles Dickens who published his stories in weekly installments in newspapers (think of it as a web page that refreshed weekly). He would write new chapters each week. They turned often verbose and flowery, but he got paid by installment and in the end his stories were well loved and he became an international celebrity.

The downside, he died and left a novel unfinished. Okay, I'm not going to look up if The Mystery of Edwin Drood was serialized, but that's the concept anyway: Writing a story chapter by chapter, not knowing if you'll ever finish it.

I did that twice, and for me it was crazy making, if fulfilling. Having to finish a chapter done on time and when promised was hard when I did it in fan fiction. I even had to add author notes because I had modify previous chapters to make the story work.

I did it again with Mars Needed Women, an original science fiction work inspired by current dystopian events. I initially serialized it in a different form on Mastodon†. That, however, was 31 chapters in 31 days based on 31 feminist #writever prompts, for an entire month, day by day, composition and revision and publication done each day, with barely a vague idea how it would end. Grueling. Doing and succeeding at such things builds writer muscles.

2) Safe serialization is where you've completed the story composition before you start serializing chapters, or better yet simply serialized a finished work, which is how it is done in magazines today. It is definitely safer than going the full Dickens. I did this for years while writing fan fiction, trailing the revisions, and rarely having to change published chapters to add foreshadowing or corrections. It had the advantage of not being so hectic. Mind you, I didn't publish them as regularly; it makes for better quality output. Better for the nerves, too!

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† I have deleted the story posts, but the meta content still exists under #RSMarsNeededWomen. The revised story, with additional content and twice the word count, is currently being beta read. It has already interested a publisher enough that I was asked to submit before normal submissions. 🤞🏼

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