The Fiction-writing Apocalypse… Or Not?

In the Ever-Tweakable World of Writing On, If Not For, the Internet…

E-publishing Division, Amazon has added another tweak: Kindle Serials, as expounded upon by Porter Anderson (on the great Jane Friedman’s blog). Home base of the discussion seems to be, “If Charles Dickens could serialize his novels, why not 21st Century writers?” And Amazon, as usual, is the provider (or enabler) of such writer-friendly venues. Kindle Serials is subtitled, “Great Reads, one episode at a time.” Sounds great, right? To me, too. But Porter Anderson raises an interesting and important question (marketing- related, of course) for would-be serializers to consider: If a story is going to be serialized (i.e., released piecemeal to the public over time), why not “improve it,” given the opportunity to get feedback from readers over that time?

I put “improve it” in quotes because that’s the issue, isn’t it, whether the likes/dislikes/ideas of readers would improve the author’s product, especially when those are the people presumably buying it? Would that process improve a piece of writing, or simply result in the proverbial camel, venerably defined as a horse designed by committee. Well, here is my unabashedly sarcasm-loaded opinion on that:

Reader-influenced serialized stories, hmmm. Why not apply that process to musical compositions, even opera? Or how about paintings? Or dance. Have each performance stop at several points and have the audience vote on the next movements, whether or not they know anything about dance. Seems great for Broadway productions, right? The ultimate in audience participation.

But why stop there? Let readers—writing seems the most available for this, given its unfolding nature and the time it takes—grab each subsequent chapter and run with it, submitting their individual efforts to the “readership,” then have that readership—for a fee. Weee!—vote for the best submitted chapter, and so and so on. ‘T’would be the ultimate in this our Interactive/Interconnected Age. I just love 21st Century progress.

Missing in this commentary, of course, are other issues, such as ownership of a work, artistic unity, and the author’s original intent, etc, which should be considered. Soooo, consider them, please, and let me/us know your thinking.