One of the more unintentional "reject modernity, embrace tradition" posts on this site. In a world where this catches on someone will come up with the bright idea of serialized novels again. It's like a payment plan for a book! More watercooler moments waiting for the next volume! Authors incorporating fan feedback between volumes! Imagine all the Dickensian possibilities.

▲

mrec a day ago | parent | next [-]

Plenty of webfiction out there which is exactly this. It does tend to fall into the trap of going on forever though.

	▲	chrismorgan 21 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Printing is a good constraint against getting too long, both the physical and cost constraints. Though the Harry Potter series in full still managed to reach a million words. For another comparison, the Bible is around three quarters of a million words, and tends to use special paper (20–40gsm/30–50 micron) so it works in one volume. Handwriting is also a good idea for encouraging keeping lengths down; typing and dictation make verbosity too easy; and as for LLMs, words are clearly far too cheap there.
	▲	bluGill a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There is a lot of web fiction out there that would be better if the authors had written "the end" a few years ago.

▲

pfdietz a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> someone will come up with the bright idea of serialized novels again

You mean, like on Reddit? ;)