The Medusa Ritual

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This Friday, 1 February 2019, I’ll start serializing the working draft of my new Pierce Mostyn novel—The Medusa Ritual.

So I thought I’d talk a little bit today on what inspired me to write the book, and why I am choosing to serialize the working draft on my blog.

The Inspiration

The other day, on Twitter, I received one of those tweets where you answer a question and then tag a few other people. The question was name 5+ writers who inspired you to write.

My list was:

Edgar Allan Poe

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Saki

HP Lovecraft

Robert E Howard

Rex Stout

Lawrence Block

Anthony Trollope

I would’ve added Jules Verne, but ran out of characters.

It’s no secret that the Pierce Mostyn series draws on HP Lovecraft for its primary inspiration. Nightmare in Agate Bay is more or less a contemporary retelling of “The Shadow over Innsmouth”. Stairway to Hell drew inspiration from Lovecraft and Bishop’s “The Mound”. While Terror in the Shadows was inspired by HPL’s “The Lurking Fear”.

“The Man of Stone” by HPL and Hazel Heald became the springboard for my imagination to take flight with The Medusa Ritual.

Are the two stories anything alike? No. Not really. Both feature a book of forbidden knowledge, both touch on the Cthulhu Mythos, and both have people turning to stone–and that’s it. But the ideas in HPL’s and Heald’s story were enough for Mostyn, Bardon, Dotty, and the gang to say, “Hey! Run with this!” And I did. After all, writers need to listen to their characters. 😃

Serialization

Last week I talked about the practice of serializing novels. So let’s talk a bit about why I’m serializing The Medusa Ritual for free.

First of all, I’m not serializing the finished book, and you might ask why? And the answer is that in a way I’m following Victorian practice.

Frequently in the Victorian era, a novelist wrote the novel as it was being serialized. Dickens, for example, was only one or two installments ahead of his publisher in writing The Old Curiosity Shop. In my case, I handwrite my books, then do an initial edit while typing them. So much like the Victorians, you’ll get the working draft of the book.

Now you might be curious as to why I’m serializing the book for free on my blog. Again, for much the same reason the Victorians serialized: to drum up interest in the book. I’m also hoping to attract more readers to the Pierce Mostyn series, to attract more traffic to this blog, and to get readers to sign up to my mailing list.

In addition, I’m giving you a chance to comment on the work in progress. To be a bit of an editor, as it were.

Serialization is making something of a comeback. Fan fiction is usually serialized. Books are often published in installments on Wattpad. Channillo is a subscription site ($5/month) where writers who want to serialize their work, and get paid, can do so.

There are, in addition, those few writers who issue their novel installments on Amazon and then collect all of the installments into book form.

Steve Bargdill published the novelettes that comprise his Wasteland separately and then collected them in book form.

GC Julien serialized her The Feral Sentence series and then followed up with the installments issued in book form.

For now, I am willing to offer my working draft for free. If my experiment is a success, I might try Bargdill’s and Julien’s approach. In the Victorian era, one of the reasons publishers serialized novels to begin with was to allow those with less disposable income to buy the book. In those days folks could possibly afford the monthly cost of the installment, whereas the outlay for a complete novel may have been prohibitive. It was a win-win for both the publisher and the reader.

Today, when traditional publishing puts a $10 or $15 price tag on the Kindle edition of a James Patterson novel, a 99¢ serial installment looks very affordable.

I know for myself, living on a fixed income, the price tag of a book has become very important. And sad to say, many indies are pricing themselves right out of my wallet. I do not look at indie authors who are selling at the $5 price point or above. And I very much think twice when the book is priced at the $4 price point. After all, I’m stuck with the book if I end up not liking it. I can’t turn it in to the used ebook store to recoup a bit of my money.

For the next 18 weeks, I’ll be running 2 blog posts each week: my regular Tuesday post and on Fridays the installments of The Medusa Ritual. Tune in each week to double your pleasure and double your fun.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

The Serial Novel

Last week I mentioned my intention to serialize the working draft of my next Pierce Mostyn novel, The Medusa Ritual, on my website. That plan is still in the works. I’m thinking of 18 weekly installments issued during February, March, April, and May. Then in June I’ll publish the revised novel in ebook form.

Why serialize a novel? Why not? As near as I can tell, the serialized novel has been around since at least the 1700s. It is generally agreed that the overwhelming success of the serialization of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens from March 1836 to October 1837 established the commercial viability of serialization as a publication format.

During the Victorian Era, in general, the highest paid authors were the ones favored for serialization. If your book wasn’t chosen for serialization that usually meant you were considered a mid-lister.

During the pulp era, magazines often serialized novels. In fact, many pulp era novels never saw print in book form and languish in often rare and deteriorating magazines. Today, however, there are publishers seeking to remedy that situation and you can find pulp era serialized novels now coming out as ebooks and print on demand paperbacks.

Recently, I bought an ebook of Robert James Bennet’s lost race novel Bowl of Baal, serialized in All Around Magazine from November 1916 to February 1917. This is the first book publication of the novel.

Rex Stout’s lost race and subterranean world novel, Under the Andes, was originally serialized in All Story Magazine in 1914. It didn’t see book form for over half a century.

In 1932, Weird Tales published the only Jules de Grandin novel Seabury Quinn wrote in 6 installments from February to July. The novel didn’t see book form until many decades later.

However, not just obscure novels were serialized. As mentioned above, Dickens made serialization financially lucrative for publishers and authors. All throughout the Victorian era and well into the 20th century very popular novels first appeared as serials — many which are considered classics today.

In addition to Dickens’s novels, below are a few other classics that were serialized initially:

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

And the list can go on and on.

So if serialization was so popular, what happened? I think a major answer lies in the demise of the print media. First radio, then TV, followed by the internet have damaged interest in print. Magazines and newspapers have suffered the most, and those were the vehicles that serialized novel length fiction all throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th century.

A second reason lies in what serialization tended to do to a novel. Things that were not considered good writing:

• Excessive length
• Too much repetition
• Plot lines that didn’t go anywhere
• Excessive melodrama leading to cliffhangers

One reason the novels were revised for issuance in book form. However, publishers (and even readers) think novels have to be a certain length, and so to achieve that length some of that “bad” stuff was kept to pad out the novel.

So is there a future for the serialized novel? I think there is. Writers seeking ways to drum up interest in their work and to secure for themselves an audience, are exploring whether or not serialization will help to that end.

After all, most TV series are nothing more than serialized “novels”. So if we can watch our “novels” in installments on TV, why can’t we do so again in our reading material? No reason, really.

So I’m going to experiment with the serial novel. And I hope you’ll participate in this adventure by telling me what works for you and what doesn’t. Because, I am after all writing the book for your entertainment. I want you to enjoy it. And you can help me to achieve that end.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!