Different Structures for Different Mediums

(image courtesy of Michael Gaida via pixabay.com)

Plenty of authors release chapters of their books as their serial episodes, and then release the finished book  once they’ve released all the episodes. That works for them, and it’s great. It’s how we’ve gotten many of the novels we now consider classics, by authors such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jules Verne, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood.

Two of my favorite authors who write books I love and release them as serials before they come out in book form are Lilith St. Crow and Ilona Andrews. These two authors, in particular, understand the differences needed to make a serial successful, and how to also make them successful book chapters, so it is as satisfying in one format as it is in the other.

As a reader, I like my serial episodes fairly short (preferably around 1k, definitely under 2K); whereas, in most fiction, I prefer chapters to run around 2.5K. There are some novels with short chapters that work for me, but overall, when I open a novel, I want to sink deep into each chapter, and, as a reader, I prefer long chapters. That does not suit some stories, which are action-based, with tight, driving plots. As long as the flow works for a particular story, I’ll go with it, no matter the length.

The script analysis work has made me much more aware of the importance of structure, and how choosing the wrong structure for a medium or for a genre can cause it all to collapse. I don’t just read and analyze screenplays and teleplays; I cover books, short stories, and stage plays as to their potential for adaptation. Because I am a published/produced writer across these mediums, and have professionally done adaptations between mediums, I can see down into the bones of a piece in a different medium, and how it could adapt (or not adapt). That’s a different conversation, in some respects, and, as I said in the previous post, I’m under NDA and limited in what I can discuss about that job. But that work has helped me grow my own craft.

As a writer, I structure serials differently than I structure novels. While the end of every chapter needs to contain an impetus to drive the reader to the next chapter, for a serial, that needs to be heightened. Sometimes it’s a cliffhanger. Other times, it needs to be a button, or a breath. Because if every chapter ends on a heightened emotion or situation, it will, eventually, exhaust the reader. Eloisa James was the host on the Author’s Guild webinar on serials, and talked about how writing  (and co-writing) serials has grown her craft, because the structure is different. Other writers don’t feel the need to do anything differently, and it works for them. But I notice a distinct difference in my own work when I structure a serial episode or a chapter.

If something starts as a serial, as ANGEL HUNT did, and I then adapt it to a novel, I have to decide how many episodes make sense to combine in a chapter. As mentioned above, I like shorter episodes, but longer chapters. As I’m re-breaking down ANGEL HUNT from the novel adaptation into the serial episodes, I’m making them shorter than the original episodes from the first incarnation as a series (way back in 2003 or something). Originally, they were around 1K words per episode. In the new incarnation, I’m breaking them down anywhere from just over 600 words to a little over 1K. Many of the episodes find their sweet spot in the 800-900 word range. I’m also driving them more on cliffhangers or flippant/sarcastic final episode lines.

I remember how difficult it was to adapt ANGEL HUNT from serial into novel. I then went on for another hundred pages or so of the novel, and got discouraged, because the twists and turns it took were making it unviable to query as a novel, and I didn’t want it to be a series. Looking back, I see how long the adapted chapters of the novel are (sometimes up to 5500 words), and I wonder how I thought that was sustainable. Too long, even for me.

Thank goodness that I updated my Topic Workbook, THE GRAVEYARD OF ABANDONED PROJECTS, based on my class of the same name. That class teaches how unfinished projects drain creative energy, and how to sort projects into categories to revive them, put them in stasis, or lay them to rest, in order to make room for new projects that will get finished. (If you’re interested in the Topic Workbooks, there’s more information here).

Reminding myself of these techniques, which has fallen by the wayside during the pandemic, are what got me re-reading projects like ANGEL HUNT and EARTH BRIDE and putting them back on the roster. I also laid several projects to rest. And yes, like in the workbook, I am creating a graphic of a headstone with the title, so I have a visual representation of that graveyard.

LEGERDEMAIN was envisioned as a serial from moment one. The plan for it is that it will continue as long as the metrics work. It is an open-ended serial. However, within that, for its initial run, I have three large arcs planned. I wanted each arc to run 30 episodes, so all three would be contained in 90 episodes. By the time the last arc started going live, I hoped to have enough metrics to know if I needed to continue, or if it was enough, I’d wrap it up with an episode or two to complete it, let it run for a few more months, and then take it down. I would then look at the viability of adapting it into three novellas, or one novel around 90K, after a break of several years from the end of the serial run.

Since I drop 2 episodes a week of Legerdemain, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the 90-episode arc would take 45 weeks to complete.

However, serials being what they are, it took on a life of its own. The first arc ran 41 episodes. Readers could stop there, if they had enough, even though there was enough to drive the reader forward into the next arc. Episode 42 was a bit of a bridge episode, wrapping up some loose ends in the first arc, and then getting the drive going into the second arc. At the time of this Process Muse post, I’m behind where I want to be in the second arc, but I’m pretty darned sure it won’t be finished by Episode 60. Even though I have the first three arcs outlined.

I did not, however, break the outline down into individual episodes, the way I would in the writers’ room of a television show. Don’t worry; there’s information about outlines in a future post!

With VIXEN’S HOLLOW/THE CUNNING ONE (the serial I am creating specifically for YOU on THIS platform), the character started yapping at me and would not shut up, I wrote an outline, and then I started writing. So far, these episodes are longer than ANGEL HUNT, but shorter than LEGERDEMAIN. I have no idea how many episodes THE CUNNING ONE will wind up running. I’d hoped between 12 and 20, but I have an inkling it may run longer. Which is why there will be more lead time between you reading these words and reading that serial itself.

But each episode of a serial has to be satisfying in and of itself while driving the reader forward in a different way than it would in a novel. Few novels are read in a single sitting. But serial episodes are meant to be read while riding the subway or sitting in the doctor’s office or grabbing a few minutes waiting to pick up the kid. The emotion you want the reader to feel at the end of the episode is, “that was fun! I can’t wait to read what comes next.”

Part of the fun of a serial is the anticipation for the next episode. Those who binge read don’t have that reaction, which is why it’s less likely that binge readers are the target audience for my serials. They wait until the whole thing is done before they start. In some of my work, if the metrics support it, it could take years to be “done” and it might NEVER be released in a different format. So we are not a good fit. And, for me, as a serial reader, part of the joy is waiting for the next episode (provided it keeps hitting its promised release schedule).

Knowing that LEGERDEMAIN was created as a serial meant that I could take the points from the outline and let the serial’s unique internal rhythm create the episode within the structural requirements. I’ve been writing long enough so that I no longer have to revise (as much) to fit structure after spewing out the first draft. When I know the medium in which I’m working, I have that structure as part of my internal writing rhythm.

A piece’s unique rhythm (for me) is a combination of the voice of the individual piece with my author voice and the expectations of the genre (or genres) layered over it. In Legerdemain’s case, it’s a mystery set in a fantasy world with a heavy lean into humor, and sometimes beyond humor into comedy and even satire.

When I create a chapter for a novel, such as for CAST IRON MURDER (the first book in the upcoming Hearthstone Mysteries) or in SAVASANA AT SEA (the first Nautical Namaste mystery), I’m telling the story in a different way, in longer sections before the cliffhanger/button/breath. The chapters of a novel, in my work, serve a slightly different purpose, pace, and rhythm, than episodes in a serial. Even in genre fiction, which generally requires a quicker pace than more generalized fiction. (That’s a lot of “gen” in the previous sentence, but let’s roll with it).

Plays, radio plays, screenplays, and teleplays are built on an overt scene and act structure. Prose is more subtle about it, although it hits many of the same points, and there’s more room for narrative exploration (as long as it doesn’t tip into infodump or unnecessary backstory). In all of these mediums, there’s plenty that the writer needs to write in order to immerse themselves into the world of the story. But the reader doesn’t need to know every detail.

Don’t dump too much information cayenne into your word soup.

That’s my two cents (or 1700-ish words) on my experience in the difference between serial structures and other structures.

Another note: It’s National Novel Writing Month! My novel this year is a mystery set in 1957 in a community inspired by The Spruces here in the Berkshires, called THE TREES WHISPERED DEATH. I’m over there under the Devon Ellington moniker. I run a group called Enchanted Wordsmiths. Send me a request and I’ll send you an invite. I also have a FREE little booklet called 30 TIPS FOR 30 DAYS that gives suggestions for preparation, daily encouragements, and what to do when you’re finished. Click the link on the book title to download in various formats.