Thursday News Bites - A Bit About Serials and Shadow Run

Serials have been with us a long time, as storytellers and listener/readers. The device of keeping the audience returning because they want to know what happens next was probably invented by the first epic poet. While some epic poems, like Beowulf, can be recited in a mere three hours - an audience would stay for this if the scop was a good one - something like the Odyssey takes about twenty-six hours, something much more likely told over several sessions.

(Did Homeric age poets indulge in cliffhangers? No idea. Fun image, though.)

So by the time modern, written serials came about in the late 19th century, it certainly wasn't a new idea, just a commercially clever one - getting the readers to come back and buy the paper/magazine every week to see what happens next.

Our serial fiction now can be broadly categorized as any story that doesn't conclude in one episode/book/installment, from daytime television dramas, to long-form stories in a TV series like The Expanse, to multi-novel fantasy epics, to bi-weekly updated webtoons, to classic serial fiction. It's all serialized - a story broken up into individual pieces that requires the reader/viewer/listener to come back for the next installment to see what happens next.

Shadow Run is that last example - an old style work of serialized fiction where you get a short chapter every week. And, incidentally, I get a chapter every week since I'm writing as we go. I have chapters planned in advance, but unless I'm going to be away, I've yet to have more than two written out at any one time. Shh, don't tell anyone.

There were choices to make before I could start writing - how long would the episodes be, when would they update, who would get the POV, what was the broad shape of the story - but I haven't dithered or outlined or over-planned. Here are three characters who get alternating episodes, here's the idea and wheeee! Off we go.

Every Monday, a new episode posts on the blog, and so far I've been able to alternate the episode POV's between Zie, Essenin and Davitts. We may be coming to a point where that has to change, but we'll see. Each episode is approximately a thousand words long - sometimes they go a little longer when they have to, but the idea is that you can snap up each episode quickly on a Monday and get back to your day.

Episode 1 is linked on the Home Page, and all of the episodes are listed out on the dedicated Shadow Run page, which also contains a running glossary as I make up words. Because you knew I would. If you're joining us later, you'll also find the link to the next episode at the bottom of each installment.

I've tried to make this as convenient as possible, :D and do hope you've all been enjoying this foray into serial fiction, cliffhangers and all.