This is the handout for my Web Serial Toolbox workshop, which I’m teaching today at Readercon at 6pm. I’m posting it here as a reference document for those who don’t pick up the physical handout, or who lose the piece of paper, or in case I didn’t bring enough copies, or if a paper-eating nanotech experiment escaped from a nearby office park and destroyed them all while I was on my way to the con.

This is the bare bones reference document, not a full “how to,” since that’s what I give in my workshop, but some of the rest of you might find it a somewhat useful checklist of things to do if you’re starting, or already running a web fiction serial. I might write individual blog posts at a later date on individual topics if I have time and inclination.

Web Serial Toolbox Reference Sheet

by Cecilia Tan, author of award-winning web serial Daron’s Guitar Chronicles

Web serial/web fiction: “(Also known as “Webfiction” or the “Online novel”) is the prose equivalent of webcomics such as Sluggy Freelance or Girl Genius (among many others) which… have distinct Story Arcs. An author, usually an amateur, publishes a Novel in many short installments (often daily or weekly) on a website.”
(Definition from TV Tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WebSerialNovel)

Another definition (mine): “The online text-fiction equivalent of serial storytelling forms such as television shows, comic books, or soap operas.”