Cereal

Not my idea as such, but books back in serialized form? My own personal trouble with it is that it opens books up even more to the penchant of readers' fiscal whims and publishers malicious attitudes towards art that is not responsive to readers' (read: customers') fiscal whims.

That said, its weakness--openness--is also its advantage. Open means responsive, adaptive, able to change, not just with whims but all other contact with the present as well. Comics are a great example (also struggling to remain serialized). The fact that they continue potentially forever means that they can respond and comment on the contemporary world within their own textual system. IE, mutants can be a cipher for race relations and then thirty years later for gender and sexual identity struggles. Neat-o.

Two proposals: First a medium for the continued appearance of these bits of novels. A magazine or lit journal rag of sorts that is willing, able and happy to house things that need the space to breathe and continue at whatever pace they deem necessary. Maybe even take the model from early comics like Action Comics or Detective Comics that featured a new storyline every issue. The publication persists and continuing stories can live their, but aren't necessary for the frame to continue.

Second proposal is simply to think about the effect of a serialized that is pre-written and only broken up in its presentation. This certainly limits, or negates, the openness spoken about above, but it heightens the reader interaction in the element of time. What I mean by that is that one of the key features of novels as opposed to short stories is that they take up a considerable amount of time. Now this can mean an almost panicked day of intense reading or it can mean months spent picking up and putting down a novel. Good novels tend to be aware of this time element and engage it in specific ways. A serialized novel has the unique opportunity to construct (at least in part) its readers' temporal engagement with it. A novel that is written in advance and broken up has the most complete grasp of this benefit and can use it for any number of thematic or simply suspenseful purposes. One of the most interesting things about novels is that if strung out over time they become a part of your life, they can exist contemporaneously with your own day and comment and reflect back upon the things that happen in it.

I know this ended up being an essay instead of an idea. But these are the types of thoughts you could bring to your television watching and your comic book reading or any other serialized activity. These are all stitches woven into your day and being aware of their existence is probably a good thing.