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What is a Webserial?

February 19, 2009

According to Wikipedia, a webserial is :

a written work of literature available primarily or solely on the Internet.

That’s a pretty broad definition, suitable for answering a multiple-choice question on an exam, perhaps, but not nearly solid enough for my liking.

Webserials are based on a rich history of serial stories – told piecemeal through newspapers, magazines, or even just by word of mouth.

One of the most currently popular versions of serials are webcomics. A new comic comes out every day, week, month, or whenever, and it adds a bit or contributes further to the story or world that the webcomic is based on.

Serial fiction is currently less popular. People like short stories or novels – entire solid chunks of writing that they can conceivably read from start to finish at their own pace. The days when writing arrived via great ships across the Atlantic so that readers could find out what happens next in a Charles Dickens story are long gone, but serials are not dead.

I believe they’ve just been hibernating. Waiting for that shift in society that would allow them to flourish once more, as they once did a la Schaherazade prolonging her life by telling a story a night to the fickle king of Arabian Nights.

That shift, my friends, is the internet and the ease of use found in blogging software. Nowadays, any writer can start up a webserial with ease, breaking it up into blog entries. Readers can add the blog’s feed to their feed reader and writers get nearly instant feedback on their writing. 

To me, a webserial is a story told over time using the internet as its publishing tool.

Tags: FAQ