I think it’s about time I made a summary of everything we’ve learnt about web fiction, at Novelr, for the past four years or so. This post contains all of Novelr’s work. Much of it is directed to the web fiction newbie, intended to bring new writers up-to-speed with all we know about writing and publishing in the form.
Some of these articles are four years old, and sometimes you’ll see a badly articulated idea refined through multiple posts. Looking back on it, I find some of my attempts rather pathetic, and also kind of cool – we’ve certainly come a long way since those early days of experimenting around the blog format.
I hope you find these posts to be of some use.
Why Write Web Fiction?
- (Guest post): To reinvent the novel
- (Guest post): There’s no editing, and that’s a good thing.
- (Guest post): Before you begin writing online fiction!
Web Fiction – The Format
This section contains ideas and observations on the web fiction form.
- Why Web Fiction Discourages Comment-Based Criticism
- Exploring Personality Bias (Why writer personality affects a reading experience)
- Writing as Performance Art (Livewriting web fiction)
- Ebooks vs Web fiction (How ebooks are winning in 2010)
- The Form and Function of Penguin’s We Tell Stories (interesting ideas from the 2008 writing experiment)
- Who Serves The Mobile Web? (on the shift to mobile ebooks)
- The Golden Notebook and Group Reading (ideas from if:book’s 2008 social reading/publishing experiment)
- Why you will never read fiction, online (based on a Cory Doctorow essay, really old!)
- Why writing long chapters are perfectly fine (a.k.a why the Doctorow essay was wrong)
Designing for Web Fiction
Designing your web fiction site is probably going to be one of the most important things you do, second to the actual writing. Conclusions: the back button is your enemy. Do everything to convert the browser to a reader. Set a tone through design.
- A Format For Online Fiction
- A Format For Online Fiction (Part 2)
- How to Design For Readers
- Picture Book Theory (a.k.a why design is so incredibly important for a reading experience!)
- Design: Improving Readability Without Lifting A Pencil (Part 1)
- Design: Improving Readability Without Lifting A Pencil (Part 2)
Writing Web Fiction
Some thoughts not included below: 1) some people recommend keeping a buffer of one or two chapters while publishing. 2) Talk to your readers while writing. 3) Find a posting schedule and chapter length that is best for your story.
- No Time? Don’t Even Try (aka: web fiction takes a regular schedule. Stick to it)
- Where does your web fiction go after you die? (Suggestion: print it out and save it for your children)
- (Guest post) Fictional character blogs can be bad – here’s why
- (Guest post) Beginning, Middle and End
Talking to Readers
If you want a fulfilling web fiction experience, talk to your readers. Respond to any and all comments. Be nice.







