Chris, love the idea of a serialized novel and I look forward to the first installment! I'm also curious as to how serialization changes your writing style, if at all?
Hello Mike! What a great question! The key that I am learning is keeping the chapters shorter under 2,000 words which is about 4 pages in a standard novel. If you look at many of the thriller novelists such as Grisham, Baldacci, Child, and Brown, they keep the action moving with short chapters and leaving mini-cliff hangers on each chapter. This does several things, gives the reader a stopping point, which allow them to put the book down while keeping their interest to pick up the story later. Short chapters also helps readers feel accomplished in their reading. With the way serialization works, think of it like your favorite TV show on Netflix, the writers leave you off at a point on each episode where you are clicking "next episode" so you can see what happens. I find myself sometimes watching just the first few minutes because of my curiosity. So my goal to continue with that tension on each "episode" of The Inevitable, and one of my thoughts is "dropping" 3 episodes at a time. One, this will be about 20 minutes to 30 minutes of a readers time, and also it will help me tell the story over a few months than a year, which I think would be hard to keep a reader's interest. The biggest change in serializing The Inevitable, speaking of time, has to due with the timelines. In Shock & Denial, it's 9 days in Dr. Andrew Becks life, which I go into great detail and have many backstories and flashbacks woven in for character context, motivations, and desires. The Inevitable will be different in that the backstories can be "optional" reading, as I will provide separate links to the backstories, but if a reader doesn't care about the backstory, they can keep rolling with the action. Honestly, I've never done this before, so I'm learning from everyone else on Substack. Thanks again for the question and the interesting topic!!
Chris, love the idea of a serialized novel and I look forward to the first installment! I'm also curious as to how serialization changes your writing style, if at all?
Hello Mike! What a great question! The key that I am learning is keeping the chapters shorter under 2,000 words which is about 4 pages in a standard novel. If you look at many of the thriller novelists such as Grisham, Baldacci, Child, and Brown, they keep the action moving with short chapters and leaving mini-cliff hangers on each chapter. This does several things, gives the reader a stopping point, which allow them to put the book down while keeping their interest to pick up the story later. Short chapters also helps readers feel accomplished in their reading. With the way serialization works, think of it like your favorite TV show on Netflix, the writers leave you off at a point on each episode where you are clicking "next episode" so you can see what happens. I find myself sometimes watching just the first few minutes because of my curiosity. So my goal to continue with that tension on each "episode" of The Inevitable, and one of my thoughts is "dropping" 3 episodes at a time. One, this will be about 20 minutes to 30 minutes of a readers time, and also it will help me tell the story over a few months than a year, which I think would be hard to keep a reader's interest. The biggest change in serializing The Inevitable, speaking of time, has to due with the timelines. In Shock & Denial, it's 9 days in Dr. Andrew Becks life, which I go into great detail and have many backstories and flashbacks woven in for character context, motivations, and desires. The Inevitable will be different in that the backstories can be "optional" reading, as I will provide separate links to the backstories, but if a reader doesn't care about the backstory, they can keep rolling with the action. Honestly, I've never done this before, so I'm learning from everyone else on Substack. Thanks again for the question and the interesting topic!!