Types of Webfiction
The different shapes and sizes
We’ve been talking about webfiction for quite a while now, but there’s one point we’ve left out of the equation: the different types of webfiction. Webfiction isn’t as uniform as its term implies, and in fact the whole discussion about webfiction vs. weblit has much to do with the many forms in which webfiction can be delivered. Terminologies are often a little blurry, so the lines between different formats aren’t always clear.
On top of that, the beauty of publishing online is that the possibilities are endless. Combinations of different formats might be the way of the future, or, at least, I believe they are. But I’m getting ahead of myself: let me first outline the types of webfiction out there.
Serialized Novels
By far the most common form of published webfiction is serialized novels. Serializing fiction reached its peak in the 19th century, with authors like Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevski and Elizabeth Gaskell publishing chapters in monthly magazines, which were compiled into a book after the story was completed in the magazine. Today, this way of publishing is steadily rising again, though on the internet instead of in magazines.
There are various degrees of serialization. Some are regular novels, which update with regular chapters, and are often also available in print or e-book form. These stay closest to the novel form, and are often described as ‘drafts’ for a regular book published at a later turn.
Others work more like webcomics, in that they never end their stories, but make use of story-arcs instead of books.
Blog fiction
Since Dustin of Blogfiction.org has a well worded definition of the format I’ll use it here:
Blog Fiction: (noun) Serialized literature published to a blog that is written in a diary format. Often, but not necessarily, the fictional writer of the blog will interact with its readers.
As such blog fiction could also be a serialized novel, but not all serialized novels are blog fiction, even if they are published via blogging tools like Blogger or Wordpress. A print book example to make it clear: The Diary of Bridget Jones is a novel and a fictional diary; Pride and Prejudice is a novel, but not a fictional diary.
Short Stories
The internet seems to be quickly replacing print magazines for short story publications. There’s tons of e-zines out there devoted to them: there’s aggregators like Fictionaut, fun formats like Ficly, and loads of authors publishing short stories on their sites. Some authors publish short stories that share a world, a theme or a subject, others publish short stories as a side project, and others participate in #Fridayflash. Many authors publish short stories as bonus updates or extra content to their main work.
Hyperfiction
Hyperfiction is a non-linear publishing format; readers navigate through the story by clicking links inside the story, and thus create their own order of narration. Hyperfiction isn’t always easy to pull off nor to appreciate, but by its (experimental) nature it’s a fiction format that’s bound to the internet, and is probably the oldest form of webfiction.
Interactive Fiction
The term covers a lot, and my personal notion of it doesn’t cover everything that is, for example, referred to in its Wikipedia article. (On the other hand, maybe I should include text-adventure games and the likes into my idea of interactive fiction, the moment they are published on the internet? ) As always the lines are blurry, and definitions hard to complete.
For me, interactive fiction is fiction where the reader is part of the creating process itself. This means, that if the story had different readers, the outcome of the story probably would have been very different. A key note of this is that the outcome is fixed. An example of this is the so-called “wovel” (which is a term I dislike), where-in readers get to vote at the end of a chapter for what happens next. Another example is the system used by MCM in his #3D1D projects, where readers can answer questions, and random answers get picked.
Choose-your-own-adventure fiction may seem interactive, but has in fact much more in common with hyperfiction, in that everything is written beforehand, and readers choose their own narrative.
We’ll explore this topic more thoroughly on Friday.
Everything in-between
The main asset of the internet as a publishing platform is that everything is possible. Many authors blur the lines between genres, formats, and ideas, and use unexpected combinations to publish their fiction. As a matter of fact, most authors tend to apply some form of interactivity to their stories, be it by reader-prompted extra content, having accessible characters, and more.
The possibilities of the internet are endless, and for online publishing, I’m sure there’s much more to come.