“Make them cry, make them laugh, make `em wait.”

Avi — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:01:47 +0000

Once Dickens made serialization popular, and profitable, it became a 19^th Century publishing norm. There was the work of Dickens of course, but think of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, War and Peace, Sherlock Holmes, and many, many more. They were issued in serialized form. Recall that most important 19^th (and 20^th) century magazine for young people, St. Nicholas, which ran serialized novels. Growing up, I read the serialized novels of Thornton W. Burgess in the daily pages of the New York Herald Tribune. All followed the credo of Wilkie Collins, who, when speaking of the methodology of serialization, said, “Make them cry, make them laugh, make `em wait.”

The longest book I’ve written, Beyond the Western Sea, was my attempt to write a Victorian-like saga. At 675 pages there was nothing of that length in the children’s book world in the pre Harry Potter era, 1995. Indeed I decided to write the book in short chapters, with each chapter having a cliff-hanging ending, so as to propel my readers to read just one more, as if had been written for serialization. [In fact, the publisher was so nervous about the book’s length that they issued it in two volumes, which proved to be a mistake.] When the book was done it came to my mind that I might try to do actual serialization in newspapers. That was the birth of Breakfast Serials.

Why did serialization become so popular? In the 19^th Century, literacy was spreading among masses of people. Buying serial installments was a lot cheaper than buying a book. More than that, a serialized story means, beyond all else, a shared story. Social reading. Think of the book club experience, but multiply it by thousands! Think what a relief it is (say in a classroom) not to have the fast reader spoil the book for the slow reader by announcing what happens next. They can’t, because no one knows. Readers are always on the same page.

To be continued …

The Logic of Writing

Avi — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:03:18 +0000

Artists, and that includes writers, have the stereotypical reputation for being impulsive, living and working by intuitive steps. Beyond all else there is—so it is often believed—an emotional basis to creativity. Surely some. From this writer’s point of view, what is also fundamental is rational logic. To write true, to use a Hemingway term, a story must unfold in a logical sequence of events. Crudely put, a plot is a series of cause-and-effect sequences until the ending has a logical resolution. When cause and effect are not logical, readers balk. “Doesn’t make sense.” “I can’t follow the story.” “Too many coincidences.” “You lost me.” “Not believable.” “Implausible.” In fact, there is a veritable dictionary of phrases that are used to reject stories which have no innate logic. That doesn’t mean a story can’t have the unexpected or surprises. Indeed, if the unexpected is simultaneously perceived as logical, the reader is pleased, even delighted. Just witness the enormous success of mysteries in which the logic explanation is there, but hidden. The extraordinary popularity of Sherlock Holmes is due, I think, because brilliant logical deductive reasoning is his character. Of course, to compose three hundred pages or more (or less) of logic, is anything, dear Watson, but “Elementary.”

Avi Blog » Sherlock Holmes

“Make them cry, make them laugh, make `em wait.”

The Logic of Writing