As I sit down to write this article, I realized I don’t have a fitting open to these yet, but be damned I will. With that said: What up ya’ll? I hope that this post finds you well. As I mentioned in my previous post, a few things about how I’m going to present my novel “Underside” will be changing. To get caught up on that, click here and check out the post.
In that same post I mentioned I wanted to write something about serials and episodic storytelling, which is where this post came from. Writers always start somewhere. They are always drawn to entertainment, and they discover a desire to partake in that form of entertainment. For me, it wasn’t novels, but TV. More notably, the world of professional wrestling always seemed to draw me in.
I’ll save you the lecture and assume you understand, on a basic level, how wrestling works. At its core, the art form is a masterclass in episodic storytelling. That’s because week in and week out, it’s always there. The stories never stop, and it never ends. There is no offseason.
When done correctly, it’s one of, if not the best, form of storytelling on the planet. This was one reason I always loved the idea of writing in episodic form. Another major selling point for serials and episodic storytelling is that writers have a natural beat on how they tell stories.
I didn’t realize it UNTIL I was halfway through “Underside” but my natural beat lends itself to, you guessed it, episodic storytelling. When I finished my first draft of the novel, I had written 13 chapters. I couldn’t explain to you how or why I had that many, but I did. After I went through the rounds of edits and after some feedback, I broke them up into shorter chapters.
As I read through and started looking at places to break the story apart, I realized then that I had in fact written the chapters into breaking points. Those points turned into bite sized chapters. When I finished breaking it up, I ended up with 27 chapters of almost consistent length.
It was then that wheels began to turn in my head, I might need to reevaluate my ideas.
I started reading on Substack and noted how people approached book launches. They mentioned a lot of things like how book launches, as they are now are one off deals. You celebrate the launch and within a week, your book, and maybe even you, fall by the wayside. Forgotten by most until you release your next story, novel, post, or something to put your name back in front of people.
Those wheels kept turning. My mind kept drifting back to the episodes, and how I wanted to release my stories and my world. There’s more to this, and my desire to create a massive interactive story, but I’ll note more on that in another post. My release date was supposed to be today, July 16th. Then on the 14th, I pulled it off the draft 2 digital store front. I realized then that I was going to bet on myself, and a marketing strategy that I don’t know will work.
I’m nervous, fuck I’m terrified. I’m absolutely scared to death that this book will fall on deaf ears, or in this case, blind eyes. I’m not out to be a millionaire, but I want the worlds that I’m creating to be shared with the public. That’s why I opted to pull the trigger on this marketing setup.
So I will create a table of contents that is pinned to the top of the page. That Table of Contents might change over time, but for the time being, I will link to each chapter so that newcomers will get caught up. I will also send a completed version of the novel when I posting it. Then it will also move to archive, which we’ll talk more about in a later post as well. I read a few posts today that might influence how I proceed in distribution of post and content.
That’s going to wrap this post for now. Unless something drastic changes, serialized releases might be here to stay. I hope that you guys are ready for what’s coming. I know I keep saying that, but we’re reaching a point where that promise will start coming to pass.
I appreciate ya’ll coming for this ride. I’m excited for you guys to start enjoying this novel.
Until next time that we venture back into this universe, I’m K.L. Robinson here to take your pass at the door.
Nice job articulating why you write what you do, personalizing it, and at the same building some intrigue to your forthcoming writing.