Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for June 15, 2023

Will Zip get paid… I mean graded by the word?

Makes sense. A number of great authors had their works serialized in magazines—Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, etc.

They were later printed into book form.

To be continued all year for class assignments? Clever.

I was teaching English Comp one time… I shouldn’t have been, but it was a small college and you had to wear multiple caps… However, I digress. Anyway, one of the better students did attempt a serial over a number of assignments. They were supposed to write short papers with different emphases (narrative, description, exposition, first person, third person, etc.), and he kept his noir narrative going throughout the semester.

Zip should enter the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest. “Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Our whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with “It was a dark and stormy night.””.

He should have given ChatGPT a longer prompt.

In my distant youth, I went through a period where I thought I should read the classics. I tried Dickens, and found out that his stuff was larded with detailed descriptions of places, things and people. Why so wordy, I asked myself? You’d think he, Charles Dickens, was getting paid by the word.

Then I learned he was. His stuff was serialized, coming out with a new chapter every week or month or whatever, in a periodical. Not quite what you’d expect from big-name authors.

Am I the only person who thought, “Please sir, can I have some more?” ?;-)

Wax cups? I must have missed something in my younger days.

Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was also originally written in a series.

Hummm. Do you realize that, if you look at it close enough, a half an A is an F. …no? Well, then I suppose an F is just an F and that’s all there is to it.

Dickens novels were originally published as newspaper serials…including A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Try the DOC SAVAGE pulp novels,which were serialized so there’d be a cliffhanger every installment.When you read thenovel all grouped together,it can be maddening in repetition.

Meanwhile,in the latest serial chapter of Donald Trump’s arrest record…..

I get the feeling that the professor will prove to be a serial killer.

I’m pretty astonished Zipper knows “Oliver Twist” was originally a serial.

That’s a little short of the 500 word minimum the teacher was asking for

He will soon be educated as to the difference between part one of a serial and a “trailer”. :)

Reminds me of my freshman year in college, English lit was a required course. My class was taught by a TA, who was seldom prepared for the class. Only thing I remember is that one day he was late for class, after 10 minutes, we saw him running towards the building. At that moment we all bailed from the class.

I believe the word count per episode requirement was a bit higher.

Interesting idea. It is a creative writing class. Let’s see how creative the instructor can be.