Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Mike Miller's avatar

I'm a wordy guy and Simon did heavily edit my long rambling responses - most edits are me saying nice things about Simon - but there's one additional point on serialization I wanna toss out there.

Internet gives the real time feedback, but magazines and comic books have letter's pages, and here a writer could have a delayed, but ongoing conversation with readers. Like every comic book has some reader letter discussing three issues before.

Also, many of our classics started as serials. Dickens and Dumas are only two examples of writers who serialized novels in magazines.

Dumas spent 17 years on all the D'artagnan - related (Three Musketeers, et.al) books. Almost as much time as George R. R. Martin takes to write a chapter of "The Winds of Winter!"

Expand full comment
Ben Wakeman's avatar

As someone who's released two serial novels here on the platform and is actively publishing a third, I'm heavily invested in this conversation. Having intelligent, loyal readers like Mike is invaluable on so many levels. I love the give and take of the serial release and the reader feedback is wonderful to have. Thanks for sharing this.

Expand full comment
35 more comments...

No posts