How to Write (And Read) A Serial Story

Encourage your readers to keep coming back for more

The serial novel has a distinguished history — Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas were serial novelists.

The story is delivered one chapter at a time. The chapters may appear daily, every few days or weekly. This means that if as a reader you are in at the beginning, you have to wait for the next instalment to appear. Not something we are used to in the instant gratification world of the internet.

Readers.

Remember the excitement as a child waiting for the next episode of Dr Who to appear? Do you ever watch soaps on TV? In the UK, we are very fond of TV thrillers that run for several or sometimes many episodes and these often acquire a cult following (writers take note).

TV streaming services have realised that serials keep viewers paying their monthly subscriptions and it’s time writers realised this too.

Of course, now you can binge watch the past series as box sets or buy the DVD. Well, you can do that with serial stories as well. I keep all my serial stories available to paid subscribers in my archives and if you do not want to keep subscribing buy the book.

There are several things writers can do to make the reader’s life easier. A good serial story will have a link to a Contents Page. This means readers have easy access to the story irrespective of whether they are joining halfway through or looking eagerly for the next episode. At the end of each chapter there should be a link to the next or details of when it is due. Readers should also be encouraged to subscribe so they get a notification when the next instalment is published.

You will probably discover a serial story you like when several chapters have already been published. This means that by the time you have caught up, there are often more chapters to read.

The disadvantage for a reader is that, if the author is writing the story as they publish it they might hit a block, lose interest or just give up and not finish it. At the moment all my serials are pre-written. This means I cannot change the story much in response to comments but they might inspire another short story or serial. This has happened with my Goldilocks serial. A new serial is on the way but I will not start publishing it until it is complete.

Advice For Writers

First my usual disclaimer: I am not an expert. What works for my style of writing might not work for yours. There are no rules, no quick fixes and no get rich quick schemes. Feel free to leave comments, positive or negative. If you have found something else that works, share your findings.

Write Your Story First

Follow Mr Dicken’s example and publish the serial as a book when it is complete. Trying to write the next episode, to a deadline, when you have very little idea of where the story is going and with a cold, is not fun. What you produce will at best be sub-standard and at worst crap.

I have bent this rule slightly with Painted Stripes. Before I published the first episode I had the complete story written but with three draft endings. In response to some readers’ ideas and comments I have expanded the painting’s influence in the story and one of the characters is in for a surprise that was not in the original story.

Writing a serial is not as simple as taking a long story and chopping it into bits. Each episode needs to read as a standalone; there needs to be a resolution to a problem or a question answered but then each episode also needs a cliff-hanger. Another problem needs to appear or an underlying one gets worse at the end of each episode.

This is why TV soaps have a lot of characters. In each episode, one or more characters resolves a problem but at the end, another discovers their granny has fallen into a sinkhole, aliens are living in their attic or their wife is having an affair.

Sorry, got a bit carried away there but serial stories need to be structured in waves. The characters crest a wave in each episode only to be faced with another one. In the distance the tsunami is ploughing towards them and will hit in the final episodes.

The Mistress’ Pet Show works on the above principle. In each episode Lucilia meets a different character or is presented with a new challenge. As she tackles each one the next appears and there are clues to how her view of life is changing and the twist that appears in the final episodes.

How many episodes depends on your story length but do not try to pad it out. Good editing is about cutting back. When writing a novel or a serial we have the luxury of the space to add a little more scene setting and character detail. Do not overdo it; a serial is like writing a series of short stories with the central theme running through them.

I have serialized my book The Donnington Chronicles and that runs to 18 chapters plus an epilogue. The original book chapters were edited to fit the serial format. Goldilocks is seven free episodes and The Mistress’ Pet Show, ten.

I am still working on the optimum length for a serial episode. Goldilocks ran to around 1300 words per episode with a couple at around 700. The Mistress’ Pet Show is between 600-900 words and I am trying to keep Painted Stripes to the same. The first free episode of each is around 1300.

With the complete serial written all I have to do is remember to publish the next instalment on time (authors can schedule publications on Substack so this should not be a problem even if I’m away spending the royalties in Barbados or more likely in my case Bognor).

It is important to publish to a schedule. The internet is a fickle place and, if a story drifts off peoples radar, they will look elsewhere. One of the aims of publishing a serial is to encourage readers to interact with you regularly, they cannot do this if you are not publishing on time.

Medium vs Substack

Both make it very easy for a reader to lose track of a serial story. You can use lists on Medium or pages on Substack which also allows readers to search a profile. This is fine if you used the same main title for all of your episodes and your reader is aware of this facility. I find creating a contents page on my own website and linking to this the simplest solution.

I do not profess to be an expert at publishing on either site. I wrote this in an interview with Ari Chase Ramos when he asked Medium or Substack?

I think it depends on what the writer wants. There’s a great sense of community on Medium, especially amongst erotica writers and some really brilliant publications. The editors of publications like Tantalizing Tales and Redemption Magazine are very supportive (I recently joined the editorial team on Redemption). On the negative side, it’s not a great place to earn money unless you churn out shorter stories.

Unfortunately, I think this is encouraging some very good writers to drop their standards and publish daily shorts. Their really good stuff then gets lost in a blizzard of content from them and competing writers.

As a reader, I find I lose track of authors on Medium. Substack is a much better platform for publishing serials or longer stories. As a writer, I’d rather send my stories and articles to a couple of hundred people who have at least expressed an interest in them rather than completely abandon them to the Medium algorithm.

One Other Disadvantage

There is one downside for authors publishing a serial story. A dominant online retailer will not accept a book if it is currently published free or cheaper than they sell it for elsewhere online. I have given The Donnington Chronicles away to subscribers to my mailing list and it is available here on my Substack but, as it is behind a paywall that seems to be fine. They refused to sell two of my other books; one because four chapters were published on Medium as a teaser and the other because the prequel story, The Pending Tray, which also features in the book was available free on Substack.