feuil·le·tons 🔖
I'm a huge fan of web serials. Most people regard literature written
online as something cheap or trashy — admittedly, that stereotype
does hold water for a large portion of online fiction — but I've
spent enough years digging around the community, watching it grow,
to know that online works contain gems that outshine even the
brightest works of popular literature. People dream of Brandon
Sanderson's Cosmere, or marvel at the rich sands of Dune, but the
most compelling worlds I have seen have been found online. So why
has nobody heard of them?
The simple fact is that people tend to subconsciously cheapen the
value of free things — especially a book. If it's so good, why
doesn't the author monetize it? This is usually followed by: "if this author is serious about writing,
why don't they just publish something instead?" What people don't
realize is that the economics and tools that writers have access to
have changed drastically in the last 20 years. One quick glance at
Bookstat will
tell you that achieving any sort of financial success with a book is
a Sisyphean task, and even in the biggest success cases, publishers
end up taking a hefty chunk of the revenue. Simultaneously with this
realization, creator platforms like Patreon risen, allowing creators
to directly and sustainably monetize their works on an ongoing
basis, instead of a product that requires hefty initial effort, and
a large investment to print and market just for an unlikely return.
So naturally, creators are moving en masse to these
platforms.
The world that emerges is that of online fiction, native to the age
of the internet. Works are free to view, and are published as
serials in chapters, like the great literary works of old in their
newspaper feuilletons (see:
The Count of Monte Cristo). Creators monetize by using platforms like Patreon to allow
access to exclusive Q&As, direct relationships with patrons, and
advance viewing of chapters to the most devoted (read: hooked) fans.
Like gaming, drops of fanart and merch are available to supplement
the author's steady income from these platforms. It seems like
everyone's read Li Jin's iconic
100 True Fans
post (or the original, Kevin Kelly's
1,000 True Fans), but it's true — just by charging patrons $5/mo, a simple
audience of 1,700 fans will net an author a steady six-figure
income. This absolutely changes the way authors can support
themselves.
As a result, the number of high-quality stories online has exploded.
Because there's no filter on the production of content, daring &
wildly creative ideas float up through the foaming sea of creation,
unconstrained by the genericizing interests of publishers. Without
editors to massage stories into the known molds that can preditably
sell, web serials are free to reach out and envision whatever their
authors can dream. The worlds that arise are incredibly meticulous
in their detail yet breathtaking in their expansiveness. In a web
serial, the authors can easily take their time and offer readers a
branching web of optional side-stories, whether to investigate
intriguing personal relationships, or relate the details of
political intrigues.
And this world is just getting started. There are so many ways for literature to continue evolving, once it adapts to the expressive power of the internet and technology. One key idea is interactivity, harkening to prehistoric oral traditions, which involved the audience as participants in the stories being told. Another is personalization — books are static, but people are individuals, preferring slightly different stories, perhaps ones with a greater focus on character development, or cultural worldbuilding, or political intrigue. Web serials swim in the water of technology, and we can expect to see so many new literary experiences in the upcoming few years as people discover what this old medium, taken in a new light, can do.
As a longtime fan of the scene, I'm proud to support so many incredible authors and stories. If you're interested in jumping down the rabbit hole, here are some of my favorites:
A Practical Guide to Evil ↗, a story set in a world where the logic of stories — their tropes, roles, and narratives — actually drive the world. It follows a girl Named the Squire, apprenticed to the Black Knight who conquered her homeland. One of the most unique universes I've ever seen, with intelligent characters navigating a chess-like board of Stories where one misstep can place them in a Role where they are fated to die.
Worm and Ward ↗, a hyper-realistic superhero story that makes The Boys / Marvel feel as shallow as DC. It follows the story of a teenager with a pretty unconventional superpower who is forced to become a villain, and dives head-first, unprepared, into the world of 'capes'. Amazing at exploring the psychology of superpowered individuals, interaction and application of superpowers, and the types of societal dynamics / interests that would need to exist in the world for typical superhero tropes to be realistic.
Twig ↗, a biopunk story that follows several orphans in a world where bioengineering is developed in the early 1800s. An incredibly personal and introspective Bildungsroman in a very unique, alien setting.
Mother of Learning ↗, a progression fantasy following a magic-academy student who gets trapped in an endless time loop and has to figure out why he's there and how to escape. A mix of Groundhog Day + Harry Potter + Sherlock Holmes, this is a story with a delightful hard magic system that is somehow both deeply intricate and understandable. No deus ex machinas or handwaved logic here — when details are revealed, everything clicks.