What is Serial Fiction, ie Kindle Vella or Royal Road???

Confused about the serial fiction format some of my stories are written in? Let's dive in!

...IF you're confused about serial fiction and serial fiction platforms, you wouldn't be the first!

Serial fiction is a different kind of animal than novel writing. Sure, it's similar in the fact that you place words on metaphorical paper, tell a kick-ass story and hit 'publish' at the end, but it is a very different experience.

In the writing world, we compare novels to movies and serial fiction to TV shows. Watching the TV series for Resident Evil last night, I realized why.

Movies and novels are the whole package wrapped up in a neat bow. Typically, you watch or read them all at one time. You experience the action as it comes, but it's at a more relaxed pace.

TV shows and serial fiction, however, are consumed in small portions, one bit at a time. They have to keep the watchers'/readers' attention so they are typically action- or drama- packed and include wild cliff-hangers or excitement to continuously generate interest in the next episode. People follow the show/story during its creation, tying them intrinsically into the process and thrill of it.

This is why I love serial fiction.

To give you an idea, I write on two serial fiction platforms: Kindle Vella and Royal Road.

Kindle Vella:

Kindle Vella is Amazon's serial writing platform. It includes both fiction and non-fiction, and episodes (chapters) are written in 600-5,000-word chunks which readers can follow, crown weekly as their favorite, like and comment on (new function). The first three episodes are always free and additional episodes can be purchased with tokens.

Royal Road:

I'll be honest, I am brand new to Royal Road; I just submitted my first story there for approval today! It is a fiction-only serial writing platform which appears to work very similarly to Kindle Vella except that all the material there is free (which is admittedly a nice perk for readers!). It appears the stories are ranked on likes, follows and engagement with readers (ie comments, ratings etc). Authors make money on the platform by linking Patreon accounts to their books for donations from readers.

I LOVE serial fiction and, while I make my serial fiction into books when the stories are complete, I absolutely love the thrill of writing this way. I hope you'll check out the format through reading some of my stories! Enjoy!

- Keegan