To be continued! Join in my serial novel adventure in 2026

Your feedback isn’t just welcome, it could become part of the story.

Image: © Damon Lord 2012

Why do serialised stories keep us coming back for more? My own history with serialised fiction began with a comic book and The People’s Friend, at an untidy newspaper stall in a Welsh market, and ultimately leads to a lifelong passion and to academia. It now extends to you, and the opportunity to get involved with my PhD!

Let’s take a trip back to the 1980s, and visit Newport, South Wales. Every week, my Nanna would collect her pension, get the number 3 bus into town, then head down a dark, narrow corridor from the High Street into the indoor market to the cluttered newspaper stall, just inside the entrance. It always smelled of damp paper, overpowering the warm odour of the delicatessen opposite. My Nanna would pay 28p for her copy of The People’s Friend. Each issue held her attention with a plethora of standalone and also serialised stories. I would also get the ThunderCats comic published by Marvel UK, which had serialised stories, while my sister enjoyed the Care Bears comic. The main strips were often serialised stories, and they had a second strip in the back half with another serial, such as Power Pack in ThunderCats, and a cartoon rodent pair Cloro and Digby in the back of Care Bears.

I would get frustrated but also excited as I found the story was not completed each week. There would be another part to follow. It dawned on me that it mirrored the structure of the soap operas my parents loved to watch. Each new part progressed the story, but had enough of a cliffhanger that I would eagerly await and then devour the following week’s edition.

I discovered other literary serials, as I got into fantasy novels. The Lord of the Rings, I discovered, was released in three parts, but I have already covered how I read it in one collected volume despite a teacher’s best efforts to hinder my reading.

I should define here (as I see it) the differences between a series and a serial.

A series is a set of independent narratives written and published separately but linked (in the same universe), but distinctly finite in the narrative and not necessarily dependent on previous instalments, such as C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series.

The serial, a set of episodic narratives in one ongoing story arc of narrative, much dependant on previous episodes. George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones novels could be considered a serial; a serial has the potential to go on forever (if Martin finishes writing the next volume).

The Victorians loved their serialised novels (Dickens in particular was a pioneer of the form), but serial narrative in the twentieth century moved away from the traditional text form and was embraced by comics and soap operas in particular. In April 1993, I discovered this difference between the series and serial, I watched The Darling Buds of May on TV, and fell in love with the country simplicity (one particular actress also became a teenage crush!). I soon discovered the series of novels by H.E. Bates on which they were based, and dived into them. I remembered the disappointment and realisation that after the fifth and last book of the series, I would not read another; the series was over, and it was not a serial. I could not expect any more books or spend any more time with the Larkin family on the page.

The Tuesday after my Nanna died, 28th September 1993, I watched the first episode of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City on Channel 4. I was fascinated by this new TV series, as it was based on a serial that had been published in The San Francisco Chronicle. There were many aspects of it that captured my imagination: the heady hedonistic 1970s of San Francisco were an escape for me from the dreary grey, dull banks of the River Usk on which Newport squatted; the rainbow of characters from across the sexuality spectrum; but the narrative methodology of originally being written for an ongoing serial was a particular draw for me. It’s something I kept returning to with my own writing, always at the back of my mind, but I never properly embraced it. Unfortunately, with gatekeeper librarians stopping me being able to take out Maupin’s book, I never even got to read the quintessential serial until many years later.

Serial form has been a constant in my life since then. One of my writing heroes, J. Michael Straczynski, changed an entire genre with Babylon 5 on TV, taking TV from being a static “planet/monster of the week” series like Star Trek: the Next Generation and Doctor Who, to undergoing a total change influenced by his Babylon 5 five-year story arc. Later series of Star Trek (Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, Discovery, Prodigy) changed direction and relied heavily on the serial narrative concept instead of the series framework.

I finally got to read Tales of the City several years ago, and my love for the written serial was reborn. It’s all of this that led me to where I am today. I was always fascinated by serial because of the potential to go on forever, but saddened when a series ends. It’s what led me to consider looking at the serial form for my PhD. I’m doing a PhD in which I’ll produce a novel in serial form, and (coming full circle to where I first discovered serials) I’m setting it in Newport, my home city.

Which brings me now to you, dear reader. For my practice-based PhD at the University of Gloucestershire, I will write a serialised novel and I will publish it right here on Substack as it goes along. It’ll be still a few months yet before the official launch, but the first chapters are already taking shape. I want you to be part of it. Not just as a reader, but a collaborator, with comments and reactions on each part as it’s released. I’ve got a small cast of characters already that I’d love you all to meet, and your feedback will help shape their narrative journey.

What do you need to do? Hit subscribe. This will be a conversation, not only a read. When the adventure begins next year, join the debate, and we’ll explore the gritty landscape of Newport in a new light together.