It seems to me that serializing a novel has an obvious danger: each instalment you publish limits what you can do thereafter. For example, if somebody dies in Chapter 4 and later you decide you want to bring them back - what do you do then? I wonder how Dickens and other greats who published this way dealt with the problem. Probably the way long-form TV producers do today (however that is).
There must’ve been all sorts of retconning going on! And I wonder if the eventual printed volumes “corrected” the original serialized episodes, or not.
I will admit here to cheating a little, in that the novel has already been written—BUT I am not averse to making changes as the chapters unfold, depending on reader response and whatever it is I discover along the way. Consider it a crowdsourced revision process!
As a huge fan of both Emerson and Kafka, I think they both sound interesting. I teach "Experience" in my Transcendentalism class, and I teach Kafka (but not Amerika) in a different one. The last chapter of Amerika is fantastic, though I guess it's not at all clear he actually intended the "Open Air Theater" section as the end. It'll always feel like the end to me, though.
I think I like the first idea just a little better. It's timely, as you said, and think how satisfying it will feel to finally have the old manuscript out there.
It seems to me that serializing a novel has an obvious danger: each instalment you publish limits what you can do thereafter. For example, if somebody dies in Chapter 4 and later you decide you want to bring them back - what do you do then? I wonder how Dickens and other greats who published this way dealt with the problem. Probably the way long-form TV producers do today (however that is).
There must’ve been all sorts of retconning going on! And I wonder if the eventual printed volumes “corrected” the original serialized episodes, or not.
I will admit here to cheating a little, in that the novel has already been written—BUT I am not averse to making changes as the chapters unfold, depending on reader response and whatever it is I discover along the way. Consider it a crowdsourced revision process!
As a huge fan of both Emerson and Kafka, I think they both sound interesting. I teach "Experience" in my Transcendentalism class, and I teach Kafka (but not Amerika) in a different one. The last chapter of Amerika is fantastic, though I guess it's not at all clear he actually intended the "Open Air Theater" section as the end. It'll always feel like the end to me, though.
I think I like the first idea just a little better. It's timely, as you said, and think how satisfying it will feel to finally have the old manuscript out there.