The Return of the Series
Serials used to be popular, particularly in periodicals during the 19th century. They began to fall out of fashion as publishing costs dropped, making it more feasible to publish entire books. The last peak was in the pulps; when those died out in the 1950s, so did the popularity of serials, which became rare. Newspaper and magazine publication has also gone down, especially in the last decade or two. So the old markets for serials have almost vanished.
Enter the new markets. The web offers numerous ways to consume material, and many of those lend themselves well to serials. Why? They're small. A full-size computer screen will hold a page or two of text at most. A tablet or other laptop will hold a paragraph or two. A phone or other palmtop will hold a sentence or two. Dedicated e-readers vary in size and you can scale the text; figure anywhere from a paragraph to a page there. Furthermore, the online environment encourages people to move quickly from one thing to another, rather than stick with one activity for a sizable length of time. These features all mesh well with serials, which typically come in small portion sizes.
Serials have been appearing more and more in assorted venues. Blogs quickly developed serial fiction, and a handful of people also used them for posting poetry. Some social networks also suit the serial format; Twitter has some folks writing stories and even novels with eye toward how the words look on a very small screen. (Yes, that makes a difference. Think about line breaks in poetry.) Customized websites make it possible to manage large amounts of material coherently. There are sites devoted to webcomics, webfiction, shared worlds, and other serials.
Poetry is a less common choice than fiction or comics, but it can take advantage of many of the same formats. Ekphrastic poetry -- which is inspired by a work of art -- is easier to present online because there's no extra cost for showing the inspirational image, as contrasted with paper publication where illustrations run up the expense. One concern in verse, which does not affect prose nearly as much, has to do with line breaks. An occasional wrap-around isn't a disaster but if the viewing screen is half the average line width, that's a serious problem. Consider that tweetzines on Twitter tend to focus not just on poems that fit within the 140-character limit, but also on those that look good in a feed widget or phone screen.
Most of the same fundamental concepts in creating and presenting serial webfiction or webcomics also apply to serial poetry. You must have enough technical skill and artistic merit to catch and hold people's attention. You have to find and cultivate an audience for what you create, and deliver the material consistently. Whatever schedule you set -- daily, weekly, sporadic -- you need to stick with it. As in fiction, you can base a poetic series on characters, plot, setting, or some combination. A combination is stronger but harder to do. My most successful series tend to rely on compelling characters; it varies as to whether there is also a driving plot or just whatever people are getting up to that day. Bear in mind that poetry is more concise than prose, so every word needs to count, even in serial poetry. Also, a poetic series tends to have episodes that stand alone pretty well, even in a continuity-based series, rather than use cliffhangers to stitch together an ongoing fictional narrative. Compare that to comics, which may be single-panel or spread based (like short stories) vs. page or strip based serials (like novels). Poetry is flexible; use that to your advantage.
It helps to read articles about the craft of writing serials, or reviews of good serials, or essays about why serials are gaining popularity after a long hiatus. However, ignore anything that implies there is only one way to do this. It's baloney. You don't have to please anyone but yourself and your audience. There are many different ways to tell a story, and you should use whatever techniques you do best. This is precisely why I'm writing serial poetry instead of serial fiction -- it's something I do fast and well, and that my audience likes. I write fiction too, it just isn't nearly as popular as my poetry. So pay attention to what works for you and do more of that. Same goes if you are a reader rather than a writer; don't let anyone tell you what you "should" like. Read and support what you actually like. A tremendous advantage to serial poetry for readers is that you can get quite a lot more of something you like in an area that usually doles out material in tiny little packages.
Do you enjoy series?
Have you stuck with serial entertainment all along, or just gotten involved recently as it became more convenient?
What draws you into a series or make you want to share it with friends?
Enter the new markets. The web offers numerous ways to consume material, and many of those lend themselves well to serials. Why? They're small. A full-size computer screen will hold a page or two of text at most. A tablet or other laptop will hold a paragraph or two. A phone or other palmtop will hold a sentence or two. Dedicated e-readers vary in size and you can scale the text; figure anywhere from a paragraph to a page there. Furthermore, the online environment encourages people to move quickly from one thing to another, rather than stick with one activity for a sizable length of time. These features all mesh well with serials, which typically come in small portion sizes.
Serials have been appearing more and more in assorted venues. Blogs quickly developed serial fiction, and a handful of people also used them for posting poetry. Some social networks also suit the serial format; Twitter has some folks writing stories and even novels with eye toward how the words look on a very small screen. (Yes, that makes a difference. Think about line breaks in poetry.) Customized websites make it possible to manage large amounts of material coherently. There are sites devoted to webcomics, webfiction, shared worlds, and other serials.
Poetry is a less common choice than fiction or comics, but it can take advantage of many of the same formats. Ekphrastic poetry -- which is inspired by a work of art -- is easier to present online because there's no extra cost for showing the inspirational image, as contrasted with paper publication where illustrations run up the expense. One concern in verse, which does not affect prose nearly as much, has to do with line breaks. An occasional wrap-around isn't a disaster but if the viewing screen is half the average line width, that's a serious problem. Consider that tweetzines on Twitter tend to focus not just on poems that fit within the 140-character limit, but also on those that look good in a feed widget or phone screen.
Most of the same fundamental concepts in creating and presenting serial webfiction or webcomics also apply to serial poetry. You must have enough technical skill and artistic merit to catch and hold people's attention. You have to find and cultivate an audience for what you create, and deliver the material consistently. Whatever schedule you set -- daily, weekly, sporadic -- you need to stick with it. As in fiction, you can base a poetic series on characters, plot, setting, or some combination. A combination is stronger but harder to do. My most successful series tend to rely on compelling characters; it varies as to whether there is also a driving plot or just whatever people are getting up to that day. Bear in mind that poetry is more concise than prose, so every word needs to count, even in serial poetry. Also, a poetic series tends to have episodes that stand alone pretty well, even in a continuity-based series, rather than use cliffhangers to stitch together an ongoing fictional narrative. Compare that to comics, which may be single-panel or spread based (like short stories) vs. page or strip based serials (like novels). Poetry is flexible; use that to your advantage.
It helps to read articles about the craft of writing serials, or reviews of good serials, or essays about why serials are gaining popularity after a long hiatus. However, ignore anything that implies there is only one way to do this. It's baloney. You don't have to please anyone but yourself and your audience. There are many different ways to tell a story, and you should use whatever techniques you do best. This is precisely why I'm writing serial poetry instead of serial fiction -- it's something I do fast and well, and that my audience likes. I write fiction too, it just isn't nearly as popular as my poetry. So pay attention to what works for you and do more of that. Same goes if you are a reader rather than a writer; don't let anyone tell you what you "should" like. Read and support what you actually like. A tremendous advantage to serial poetry for readers is that you can get quite a lot more of something you like in an area that usually doles out material in tiny little packages.
Do you enjoy series?
Have you stuck with serial entertainment all along, or just gotten involved recently as it became more convenient?
What draws you into a series or make you want to share it with friends?
Companion Poem: "The Steamsmith"
"The Steamsmith" came out of the November 1, 2011 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from LiveJournal user marina_bonomi, describing the main character and a steampunk background. It was sponsored by marina_bonomi too, and originally posted on LiveJournal. You can read more about The Steamsmith series on the Serial Poetry page.
The interesting thing about this is that it spawned, not just a poetic series, but an entire world. I spent weeks researching Victorian England, but also alchemy, the history of science, elemental systems, and global timelines. Nether-Earth is a place where the process of science still works, but the questions mostly have different answers. So the series is really historic science fiction with a steampunk flavor.
The interesting thing about this is that it spawned, not just a poetic series, but an entire world. I spent weeks researching Victorian England, but also alchemy, the history of science, elemental systems, and global timelines. Nether-Earth is a place where the process of science still works, but the questions mostly have different answers. So the series is really historic science fiction with a steampunk flavor.
Further Reading
Let’s Hope Jennifer Egan’s Twitter Story Heralds the Return of Serial Fiction
Resurrecting the Serial Novel: An Introduction
The Return of the Serial Novel
The Return of Serialized Fiction
Serial novels: new platforms for an old format
Web Fiction
This article was originally posted to the Poetree community on 10/23/12.
Resurrecting the Serial Novel: An Introduction
The Return of the Serial Novel
The Return of Serialized Fiction
Serial novels: new platforms for an old format
Web Fiction
This article was originally posted to the Poetree community on 10/23/12.