The Secret Power of Serialization
Wood cut of a whale hunt
The linqua franca of the digital era is ‘attention’. Companies and individuals perpetually vye for the user’s attention, employing attention-grabbing techniques that are sophisticated (as well as sometimes downright-crude.
Serialization is a time-honored way to effectively capture a reader’s attention on a long-term basis. Charles Dickens represents the classic example, dividing his stories into readable portions and then delivering installments in monthly literary magazines or weekly in his own magazines, which he self-published to attain more control over the output.
Similar installment publishing processes were used by Alexander Dumas for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Harriet Beecher Stowe for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the Sherlock Holmes stories, George Eliot for Middlemarch, and Fyodor Dosoevsky for The Brothers Karamazov.
And in the 20th century, noteworthy writers have used this installment approach, including Steven King with The Green Mile, Agatha Christie for many of her works, and Michael Chabon with Gentlemen of the Road in the New York Times Magazine.
In the 21st century, the fluidity and global reach of the Internet have taken the installment process to new heights, including the advent of streaming audiobooks, giving a new dimension to storytelling. Works such Moby Dick, which hardly made a ripple in the literary world, now flourishes more than 100 years later as the Moby Dick Big Read. Featuring a number of narrators—some celebrities and some dedicated volunteers—the book was released as 136 separate installments.
The leviathan project (pun intended) was conceived by The Arts Institute Whale Festival (2011), curated by Philip Hoare (https://philiphoare.co.uk/), and hosted by the The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth (https://www.mobydickbigread.com/). The work also appears as individual installments on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/3PxKjwSQfNpNa2asNnHFsW), albeit punctuated with occasional ads.
The Internet has spawned a wealth of ways for writers to reach an audience of readers, eliminating the traditional gatekeepers. Wattpad (https://www.wattpad.com) boasts more than 1 billion members, a lively community, and has channeled some writers to career success. Substack (https://substack.com/home) provides the mechanism for writers to publish to email subscribers for a set fee. Other web venues make it possible for enterprising writers support themselves in ways that would have seemed impossible 25 years ago.
Many Wearing Rapiers Are Afraid of Goosequills
Shakespeare in Hamlet framed the concept: “. . . many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills,” likely more familiar to you as the saying “The pen is mightier than the sword.” There are many derivatives of the idiom dating back as far as ancient Assyria (“The word is mightier than the sword) and Greece (The tongue is mightier than the blade”), but Edward Bulwer-Lytton is generally accredited with coining the exact wording in his 1839 play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy.
Fiction, in the form of satire, parodies, or allegories, is a potent weapon to expose political and social issues, especially when faced with repressive regimes that don’t take kindly to critiques. This approach has been used successfully by generations of authors. Charles Dickens used his writing to disclose conditions in workhouses, factories, and debtor’s prisons, encouraging reforms. George Orwell satirized the totalitarian government practices, providing an allegory in Animal Farm and offered a satirical example of surveillance tactics and thought control in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The short stories of Kurt Vonnegut often dealt with societal issues, such as EPICAC (future dangers of AI), 2BR02B (infanticide and assisted suicide), Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (overpopulation), and The Package (income inequality).
Aldous Huxley, before he wrote Brave New World, wrote numerous short stories, including satirical portraits of the English gentry, the psychological toll of war on individuals, the artist’s quest for identity, the absurdities of the modern world, and the post-war disillusionment and lost hopes of a generation.
Other examples of this type of writing: Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o mocked post-colonial African political corruption in his satirical novel Wizard of the Crow. Ralph Ellison addressed the prejudice and injustice faced by African Americans in his novel Invisible Man. Joseph Heller wrote his classic novel on the absurdity of war, Catch-22. Carl Hiaasen uses humor and satire to expose the environmental degradation of Florida and the warped political actions that prevail in many of his novels, including Tourist Season and Squeeze Me.
It's worth remembering the power of words. Many a tyrant has underestimated the way in which words can reveal truths and shine a light on tyrannical actions. As Robert Burton said in 1621, “It is an old saying, ‘A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.’”
Emily Dickinson poem set to music
Posted on the site, the marginalian, this interesting blend of poetry and music, The Universe in Verse | Part One: 1, also focuses a visual spotlight on Emily Dickinson’s collection of flowers, pressed carefully in still viable form centuries after they were first collected. Sung by Joan As Police Woman, the poem is given an added dimension and fullness.
The marginalian, transformed from its previous manifestation, Brain Pickings, carries on the tradition of Maria Popova’s thought-provoking, mystery-laden journeys through the nature of existence, combining art, music, philosophy, and writing in a captivating way.
Sometimes by David Whyte
If there was ever a time when circumspection and personal reflection should be at the center of our daily lives—amidst a worldwide pandemic, onrushing climate disruption, and social upheaval—now is that time. Another excellent contribution from brainpicker, this reading by David Whyte, accompanied by additional context and observations from the poet, addresses the subtle art of self-discovery in the face of rapid transformation.
38, A Poem Read by Layli Long Soldier
The poem, 38, was read by Layli Long Solider from her collection Whereas, shortlisted for the 2018 International Griffin Poetry Prize.
Antidotes to Fear of Death: A Poem by Rebecca Elson
“The majesty of the universe is only ever conjured up in the mind. . . “
Astrophysicist Janna Levin reads "Antidotes to Fear of Death" by astronomer and poet Rebecca Elson, with music by Zoë Keating.
Poem text and context: https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/04/10/antidotes-to-fear-of-death-rebecca-elson
This is the opening of the 2020 Universe in Verse – an annual charitable celebration of poetry through science, created and hosted by Maria Popova at Pioneer Works – livestreaming on April 25, also starring Patti Smith, Neil Gaiman, Rosanne Cash, Amanda Palmer, Leland Melvin, Elizabeth Gilbert, and many more extraordinary artists, writers, and scientists broadening our cosmic and creaturely perspective.
Details here: https://www.brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse/
More About TL;DR Press
Here’s more of the interview with David Clark, co-founder of TL;DR Press, in which we talk about how themes are developed for upcoming collections, as well as the possibilities of bringing audio narration into the fold to provide additional revenues for charities.
Photo generated by Adobe Firefly.
Beckett Reading from His Works
Playwright, poet, and novelist Samuel Beckett shied away from recording devices like a rabbit hides from red-tailed hawks, but the following reading—one of very few in existence—captures him narrating a poem and a portion of one of his works: the novel Watt. Lawrence Harvey, a professor of comparative literature, met with Beckett in Paris several times and made this recording during one of his visits in 1965. Beckett won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1969 after being judged “unsuitable for the award” in 1968 by some of the committee members.
The Genesis of TL;DR Press
In an era when print-on-demand technology makes it possible to create single copies of books in a few minutes and ebooks can be distributed anywhere in the world at the push of a button, the notion of a small press springing up from a Internet-based writer’s community is not very hard to believe.
In Part One of a series, David G. Clark, co-founder of TL;DR Press, talks about how a writer’s group on Reddit evolved into a non-profit book publisher that donates all of their revenues to charities. The original writer’s community has migrated to Slack although Twitter and Reddit contingents still exist as well. From a single anthology released in 2018, the TL;DR Press library of collections has expanded to several titles and more works are underway.
The following interview was an impromptu session (I twisted David’s arm to talk about the founding of the Press and he graciously complied). The history of TL;DR Press illustrates how a diverse group of writers can come together across the cosmic ether of the Internet and publish powerful, contemporary fiction.
Click through to listen to an audio version of a story by one of the co-founders, Joe Butler.
Project VOICE
A novel way of getting young people interested in poetry and spoken word performance, Project VOICE is transforming old, stale ideas about human communication—at all levels and ages.
