she's no dickens

[lunabee34]

the_emu has a fascinating post about writing HERE. the_emu is currently serially posting a story; the story is complete, but ze's using the interim between chapters to tweak and edit the unposted portions of the story in response to audience feedback.

This post got me to thinking about serial writing and posting of fic.

The very first fanfic I wrote was a Big Bang length Spike/Xander that I wrote out longhand on legal pads, typed up, edited, and then thought—How do I go about getting this onto the internet with all the other fanfic? LOL I posted the whole thing to a Yahoo listserv, met a handful of people who introduced me to livejournal, and set up shop over here.

The first thing I noticed on lj circa 2005 was that everyone seemed to be posting long fic serially—a part each week or each day or sometimes according to no discernable schedule at all. And so when I started my next long fic, I wrote and posted it serially as well.

After I’d posted a few chapters, I definitely could see the draw of posting a story this way. Posting serially generates a lot of energy and excitement for both reader and writer.

As a reader, the delayed gratification can be just as satisfying as waiting every week for a favorite television show to air. The mini-cliffhangers ratchet up emotional tension and drama, and they force a reader to wonder what will happen next in the interim between postings. Often times, this means that readers talk about the story while they’re waiting for a new part to emerge: speculating and squeeing and nail biting—all those activities that make consumption of a source text as a community so enjoyable. At the very least, posting serially makes reading the story a process that lasts longer, prolonging the fun.

For writers, posting serially can be very encouraging. It’s interesting to see what people think will happen next in the story and very satisfying when readers comment to say they can’t wait for the next installment to appear.

Some people tweak elements of their stories based on feedback. Everybody loves this side plot? In future chapters, I’ll foreground it. Some people think I didn’t get this character’s voice right? Okay, I’ll pay closer attention to that going forward. Getting constructive criticism along the way can be really useful. I think I’ve even seen instances where authors polled readers about upcoming elements of their stories, and reader response dictated what the authors wrote (and, naturally, I can’t find a link).

Ultimately, however, posting serially just doesn’t work for me—or rather, I should say, writing serially just doesn’t work for me. There’s a huge difference between choosing to post a completed story in increments and actually composing the installments of the story during the timeline in which they’re being posted. While I enjoyed all the cheerleading comments and the speculative comments and the comments from people who were excited for the next parts to appear, I feel like the story as a whole suffered from being written in that way.

I need to have the entire document spread out before me so that I can make sure that everything is cohesive and consistent and does all the work that I want it to do. I lose focus when I write serially. I feel like some of the chapters of that fic from 2005 don’t quite match tonally because either a) so much time passed between the writing of installments or b) I was in different moods when I wrote them. It was easy to let the story languish when the writing got difficult or real life intervened, and I know some readers must have worried that I might not actually complete the fic. I finished “Shadowlands” many months after I’d started it, and I’ve never written that way again.

Because I have such trouble with writing this way, I have a lot of respect for writers who can turn out perfectly entertaining and well written fics in a serial format. And a lot of writers who write and post serially are crafting phenomenal stories. I have noticed, however, some common pitfalls of serially posted fic: the every chapter has to have a sex scene syndrome, the forgotten plot thread, the story element of initial prominence that is inexplicably downplayed as the story goes on, and the rushed or abrupt ending.


So now I want to know what you think. How do you feel about serial writing and posting of fic as a writer, as a reader, or as both? What are the pros and cons? Have you done it yourself, and if so, how did that experience compare to posting a fully edited story? Talk to me about writing!