My wife and I like to watch good television series, and this is perhaps a golden age for TV watching. With excellent science fiction and fantasy titles like Foundation, Shadow and Bone, and several years of Doctor Who to peruse, we have considerable entertainment options.
My wife prefers the Netflix practice of releasing all episodes at once. She likes to sit down and binge a series straight through. Almost every other platform releases episodes weekly, though. Apparently this is an effort to retain subscribers although more and more Americans seem to be cycling through the streaming services, only subscribing long enough to binge their favorite series before dropping them.
The idea behind series, of course, goes way back. Many people point to Dickens and other authors from the 19th century, with serials reaching the masses and leading to great sales. The concept continued with movie serials in the early 20th century, enticing customers back to theaters each week to watch the latest Perils of Pauline, among others. Then of course, radio and television series took off, although these typically resulted in complete stories fitting within their time slots rather than an ongoing plot more typical with serials.
With the rise of the internet, text-based serials bloomed once again. Chinese and Korean sites flourished, with English translations of some of those stories and home-grown American sites following.
In the 21st century, the rise of Amazon’s Kindle platform led to serialization tactics with independent authors using Kindle Direct Publishing. Some of these stories have extended into the million-word territory, successfully attracting fans all along the way. Success in particular has been found by many authors in the Kindle Unlimited realm, where they are paid by pages read, much as Dickens was paid by the word back in his day.
So what is it about a serial that keeps readers reading? There are a few underlying psychological principals that lead to additional purchases and page turns. Let’s take a look at three.
Lovable Characters
We see this in television shows, but also in books. The author creates a character readers love and fans buy book after book. A good example in the fantasy realm would be author R. A. Salvatore’s experience. He wrote The Icewind Dale Trilogy over a span of two years starting in 1988, featuring an epic fantasy cast from a variety of RPG races. One character, the dark elf Drizzt, proved so popular Salvatore went on to write dozens more novels about him.
The lovable character technique is seen in other famous examples, from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond. He or she rarely changes much, unless it’s with the times (Bond no longer smokes, for instance), and fans tune in to see what latest adventures await. In television, we see this with weekly episodes where everything is wrapped up in half an hour or an hour, with time for advertisements. In books, it’s a formula specially suited for mysteries (like Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series), or action (like Vince Flynn’s American Assassin series).
Digestible Chunks
Series are best delivered in easily digestible chunks. Producers of early movie serials discovered this, and set up episodes of the same length to run each week. Radio, with its time synchronization from coast to coast (and in Britain, with Greenwich Mean Time), compelled entertainment fare outside of live sporting events into standard slots.
In the world of books there is more leeway for authors on the length of text, although rough guidelines are often followed. In my opinion, it’s more important to provide easy to read chapters that move along, not bogging down into philosophical debates or long discussions about the way things work. These bore readers who want to escape to another world and not be lectured at. Providing easy to read chapters and books result in books that are . . . easy to read.
Unresolved Problems
When we think of unresolved problems in a series, cliff hangers come to mind. It’s true that a cliff hanger is a big unresolved problem at the end of the book, compelling readers to buy the next one to see what happened. But other issues can compel the reader to find out what happens next. Some of these are left unresolved by the author without necessarily using a cliffhanger.
For instance, in a romance the reader might be left wondering if the heroine will ever marry the hero. Or, will she wind up with his equally attractive but heavily troubled younger brother who also loves her? While this may not be left as a dangling question in the last chapter, the loose end may well be a compelling reason for readers to continue. In adventure series, unresolved problems might encompass the outcome of a war, bad guys still on the loose, or treasure not yet found.
The psychology behind serials is an interesting topic, and it is one writers tend to think about from time to time as they consider ways to keep readers engaged and buying their books. Needless to say, with a topic this vast, we’re only scratching the surface.
I’ve written several serials, but this marks the first time I have released part of my Kindle Vella series into the wider Kindle universe. Earthbound Spirits comprises the first 44 episodes of ParaDiv Ops. It is a complete book, but there are hooks in it to entice continued reading. I’d be delighted for you to check it out and see what I mean.
Jason
And don't forget the readers (in Dicken's case) would vote or choose how the story would progress. So it's a variant of the skin in the game stakes. I like the characters arcs and the stories evolving.
With my excitement, I forgot to say I loved your article about series. A thorough dissertation. When I discovered the serial stories, I was captivated from the beginning. There are stories that with your arguments make a great series, but some should be stand-alone only. When they(writers) start to describe tech, science or ordnance, even battle scenes that seem to go on forever that mostly go over our heads, we readers tend to skim-read those pages. All in all, series are very attractive. Thank you for your valuable insight, Jaxon.