And Eli, though I never precisely falsify my views, I do like to be provocative – and to prod people to do better! There is a perfectly good place for light reading, but it ought to be as well written as the best Peter Temple crime fiction, for example, or China Mieville’s wonderful SF. And yes, I believe there is a place for literary fiction, however you care to define it, both online and for free.

I am thankful for that. =)

Finally someone who is honest. Yes, indeed, most online novels are not very good.

I’ve also just arrived here via a Google search and definitely plan to explore further. However, just wanted to add my two cents since they seem slightly different than what has already been expressed.

First of all, I’m not a writer. I used to be an avid reader but free time is scarce and I’m now lucky to be able to read a handful of books a year.

Also, I don’t actually read web fiction as a rule (which makes my response to this blog post questionable at best). But I’d like to, or rather I wish that web fiction was as good as (regular?) fiction. The thing is, I don’t really enjoy short stories, and the (very small amount of) free online fiction I’ve encountered has been way too brief. The best thing by far about good fiction (for me) is spending days and weeks with the characters, learning to hate them or falling in love with them. I typically wont read something if its going to be over in a few hours.

So why would I prefer to read novels online rather than on paper? Mostly because of the convenience factor. I simply can’t always be carrying around a copy of whatever novel I’m currently reading, but I can pretty much always connect to the internet. On top of that, I’d like to be able to quickly search the text of the novel to remind myself who this character is, or where that character was last seen. At present I do usually carry a hard copy of some book or other with me when I can, but when I get the occasional 15 minutes to actually read it, I’ll spend 5 of those minutes flipping back trying to remember what was going on.

Lastly, I’d like to comment on the “because its free” statements people have made. I strongly disagree (to the point where I’m actually slightly annoyed). The reason I arrived here was because I don’t have my current book with me and I thought to perform a quick Google search to see if I could *purchase* an online copy that I could access from anywhere. To my dismay, Google kept giving me pages and pages of “free online fiction” sites. I don’t want free stuff. Now maybe things will change someday, but currently I feel that free stuff is mostly terrible. Not because its free, but because there’s so much free stuff out there that it becomes impossible to find the good stuff amongst the bad. I want an editor I trust to stand guard at the gates and only allow passage to fiction meeting certain standards. I will gladly pay for the result and I would think most other serious readers would as well.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Hopefully I didn’t rant too much. This blog looks pretty cool and I’d hate to alienate anyone here right off the bat. Oh, and @Becky: I can’t stand Robert Jordan either. Terry Goodkind on the other hand is amazing (imho).

John

You wrote, "I find it curious that if the New York Times online puts up fiction – as it is so occasionally does, for special occasions, and the like – people would read aforementioned fiction just as they would the news. It’s the context in which the fiction is presented in – post it in Tor.com, say, and you’ll have no complaints from a reader, post it on your website, and it’ll take some pushing to get a reader to read."

It don't find this curious at all. You're right, it's all about context. The New York Times online and Tor.com share a trait that most personal websites do not have: they are trusted "gateways." When a story has been posted on the NY Times, people trust that it's there because it's worth reading and cleanly edited, so (I would assume) they don't perceive reading it a risk. It's exactly the same thing they expect from a traditionally published story.

I've noticed that it can be hard for people to have an opinion of something *without* a bias — harder for some than others. Take, for instance, my mom. My dad can cook a perfect gourmet meal, and my my mom will shrug her shoulders. Serve her some just-OK food at her favorite ten-star restaurant, and she's rolling her eyes in pleasure. Because the restaurant served the meal, it *had* to be good, right? If the NY Times posts a story, it must be worth reading, right?

There's good fiction out there, and the not-so-good. Gateways serve to help readers by filtering through hundreds of manuscripts and serving up the "gems" they think readers will enjoy. Unfortunately, they can leave a lot untapped talent slushing around in rejection letters. Enter the Internet, connecting writers directly to readers. Suddenly, we can decide for ourselves who's worth reading. This is where the risk enters in — every story we read is a potential disappointment, because it hasn't been prescreened and approved by a gateway.

Great post, great thread! Thank you!

Oh, and for the record, I have *always* read because I write. And that includes print books. I've just always been a writer first, and that's true for my webfiction, too. :)

From dictionary.com (among many other sources):

“USAGE NOTE Till and until are generally interchangeable in both writing and speech, though as the first word in a sentence until is usually preferred: Until you get that paper written, don’t even think about going to the movies. • Till is actually the older word, with until having been formed by the addition to it of the prefix un-, meaning “up to.” In the 18th century the spelling ’till became fashionable, as if till were a shortened form of until. Although ’till is now nonstandard, ’til is sometimes used in this way and is considered acceptable, though it is etymologically incorrect.”

You’ll just have to grit your teeth and bear it, I’m afraid. :)

So, let me chime in now:

Eli already knows my reasons for reading from my Afterglow submission, but in short it’s because traditional fiction has become very traditional, ie. repetitive, and I have done so much reading in my life that I want something new and challenging and exciting.

Online fiction is still emerging, and evolving. If I had more time and resources, I’d write more of what I want to see — stories following multiple characters, with a design that let’s you follow one at a time, or all at once, so that you see all the perspectives on a story’s events. Diary entries, photos, character sketchbooks, maps, really interactive media flowing in and out of excellent prose. Comments and forums and reader/writer relationships.

I do find that a lot of online fiction is just as dull as traditional books, just niche-centric. I’m tired of vampires and magic. What excites me is when someone does something extremely well — like Sarah Suleski’s ability to capture emotions and relationships in Queen of Seven, or Chris Poirer’s skills with action in first-person present tense, which is very difficult to do. Alexandra Erin has rich characterization and a tremendous imagination.

The best of web fiction right now comes from authors with some very good skills — but I think we have yet to tap the full potential of the medium. But, given the fact that most of us do this sporadically and part-time, there’s still plenty of room for development.

@Becky: On the riskiness of indie/web fiction – that depends on how it’s presented, I think. I find it curious that if the New York Times online puts up fiction – as it is so occasionally does, for special occasions, and the like – people would read aforementioned fiction just as they would the news. It’s the context in which the fiction is presented in – post it in Tor.com, say, and you’ll have no complaints from a reader, post it on your website, and it’ll take some pushing to get a reader to read.

@Anna: what made you read fan fiction in the first place?

@Sarah: Hey, I read for the exact same reasons you do, so it’s not a disappointment or anything. I must admit, yours was the answer that I was expecting everyone to give.

@Sebatinsky: Thank you for your comment. =) I particularly liked it when you pointed out that online fiction is, after all, free.

@Miladysa: Chefs, Autobiographies & Military =P Those sound like sectors we should consider branching into, ae? On a more serious note: thank you for pointing out that browsing online is simpler, and easier, when you’re living in a rural place. On your husband’s reading preferences: perhaps that speaks for the majority of the population today. Why read when you’ve got pundits, movies, music and blogs?

@JanOda: A little secret: I started reading Legion of Nothing when I was supposed to be studying for an exam. Finished the entire backlog in one afternoon. Of course, that was a year ago, and Jim hadn’t so many updates then … but still. I’m like you, in that regard – if I like it, I don’t stop.

Interesting to note that you came into the field from webcomics. If there’s anything the past few years have shown us – it’s that webcomics provide us with more readers, and members, than we realize.

@Najela, @Isa, @Chris: now that’s something that I didn’t expect – more people reading webfiction because they live online. I still attempt to split my reading into ‘offline’ and ‘online’; I’d never have expected people to move completely online so quickly …

But then, to be fair, I must admit that I’ve been reading less and less offline material. Not sure if this is a good thing.

@Irk: it seems you share roots with Anna. The question, then, becomes: how did you stumble into fanfiction? When you first discovered it, was it immediate attraction to the genre?

@Kira: On Dead Kelly: interactivity. =) Yes, writer-reader interaction has always been something we can boast about, because the Internet just rocks that way. My experiences are similar to yours, in that regard, and I am thankful for it. I’m not particularly sure that non-linearity is something that readers will like, though – I’ve always considered it the domain of the literary postmodern novel, or for post-structuralist experiments.

In sum: it seems that people here read because it’s:

1) easy (as opposed to traveling to a nearby town/bookstore)
2) interactive (you get to talk with your favourite authors)
3) free
4) suitable for lifestyle (you live online)

There are others I think, but I’m rushing to class at the moment. Will post a follow-up in a couple of days. Or weeks. Soon.

I’m going to disappoint you Eli by being one of those people who has read web fiction primarily because I write it. It started with reading a friend’s short stories posted on her LiveJournal, and through her I heard about Pages Unbound, which gave me the idea to put my stuff online. So in a way I started reading it before publishing my own, but I did have, “Ooh, what is this? I could be doing this,” in my thought process from the start. Reading other people’s work, participating in the PU forums, was all more or less networking. Then, by becoming involved in WFG, reading it became somewhat of a job.

However, it’s not like I don’t think it’s a good medium and secretly would just rather read traditional books instead. Okay, so I have bought a few Lulu copies so I could read a “real book” but that’s mostly because I am more or less the exact opposite of JanOda — I have trouble plowing through a backlog and can usually follow a web serial better if I’ve caught it fairly early in its serialization. I know I could always pace myself and read a finished/established story one chapter a day, but I feel compelled to read till I’ve exhausted the available chapters. I find that daunting if it means I have to read 50 chapters. So while I like to follow web fiction, I prefer to read novels in book form, and so if a story seems interesting, I welcome a print version.

To cut that ramble short, I have found lots of quality stories that I’ve truly enjoyed, as a reader, not just a networking author, so I know that there are gems to be read online. It keeps me interested.

PS: @Anna: It’s not a typo! See! =P

My husband is one of these. 2 or 3 books at Christmas – Chefs, Autobiographies & Military. Holidays he’ll grab a few Andy McNabs, John le Carré etc. at the airport. Online fiction? Not unless I employ sanctions.