Novelr is a blog about writing and presenting fiction on the Internet. It is concerned mostly with a subset of digital publishing called ‘web fiction’ – that is, publishing serialized fiction to the web. The Internet is enabling writers to create stronger, more direct relationships with their readers. This has implications that reach far beyond both reader and writer.

Novelr is interested in exploring these implications. It’s been doing it since 2006.

A few things define my work at Novelr. I believe the Internet is a medium with its own set of constraints and rules (like the book before it, and the scroll before the book), and so I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out what works in it, and what doesn’t. Novelr does its best to help new writers get up to speed with writing for the web. It also does work to make it as easy as possible for any writer to do web fiction.

Many ideas in Novelr have led to off-shoot projects in the web publishing sphere. Web Fiction Guide started from an old Novelr post. The Dispatch is a Novelr community project. What Is Web Fiction is a concise definition of what we do. Pandamian is a digital publishing startup, founded on some of Novelr’s best ideas.

For a good introduction to Novelr, or advice on how to start writing web fiction, head to The Primer Page.

Focus and Community

Novelr deals primarily with the following topics:

• It explores techniques for writing and presenting fiction on the Internet
• It explores methods of promoting online fiction to the Internet mainstream
• It touches on converting your work from blog to book format
• It discusses the effects the Internet has on traditional print media, and
• It serves as a rally point for Internet writers. Novelr is actively involved in community building.

Novelr encourages community participation through comments and guest posts. If you are a writer and you have something interesting to say on the topics Novelr deals with feel free to contact Eli James here.

Another introduction on what Novelr plans to be about can be found in the very first post.

Praise For Novelr

… landed up at Novelr a few times after googling stuff about blooks … much informed by the posts … an excellent litblog
- Bibliobibuli (Sharon Bakar)

Easily one of the most thought-provoking blogs on writing that I’ve read. I only wish he’d post more often because what he says invariably helps my writing!
- Undead Flowers (Richard)

… superb, and really good for keeping up with these things (blooks)
- Progression (James Smythe)

… online fiction could become very big … Eli has used his insightful blog to create a great community for online writers and readers.
- Ideas for Business

… the whole site is a gem.
- Collected Voices (KSB)

… an excellent source for information on sites, articles, and other things that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise, and its synopses and analyses are first-rate, telling me everything that I need to know about and suggesting everything that I should think about a variety of posts and articles elsewhere that I don’t have the time or inclination to find and read for myself.
-M. Alan Thomas II, in a guest post

About The Blogger (Eli James)

Eli James is a nom de plume. He is a Malaysian student currently studying in the National University of Singapore. He writes in English and codes in Python. He has been writing since he was 7, and was introduced to the world of web fiction with an experiment in online writing called Janus. A quick FAQ:

Why did you start Novelr?
Novelr began while I was writing the last few episodes of Janus. I had written other manuscripts before, but all of them were offline and I wanted inspiration on how to write, where to write and who to look to for ideas – you know, that kind of thing. I found nothing. There were a few forums here and there, mostly through Wikipedia’s Blook page, but these weren’t enough. I started listing out blooks I was reading and started subscribing to PR releases by Lulu for the annual Blooker award.

About Janus, why did you consider writing it in blook form?
Janus was an experiment on characterization. I wanted to see how far I could push the cliches of the YA genre while building believable characters: you know, boy in ‘magic’ school, boy and friends get entangled in things way out of their league, yada yada yada. I don’t think I succeeded.

What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
Vanilla. Nothing ever beats Vanilla. Booyah.

PS: Still not inspired? Read this.