Hardboiled PIs Serialized?
It has been done before, (someday) it'll be done again
This is something that was done in the past, and someone (by ‘someone’ I mean ‘me’) will attempt again.
First: What’s a serial?
In this case, it’s not used like in a serial killer (although one would make a good villain)
When movable type was invented in the 15th century, books were expensive. To reach a broader market with lower-cost volumes of parts from the larger works.
This helped publishers determine whether a project was worth investing in as a whole book. If these parts hadn’t sold, the book wouldn’t have continued.
The subsequent significant development came in the 19th century.
Charles Dickens: the best of times
Better (and less expensive) printing led to the development of monthly magazines and the serialization of stories through them. These magazines were often the last step before publication as novels.
Charles Dickens first achieved success in them with The Pickwick Papers. He’s known more for A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations.
The game’s Afoot!
Of course, this was also when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle serialized Sherlock Holmes in The Strand.
Literacy grew by this era, and there was another advantage:
It also allows authors to receive feedback from their readers on plot and character development.
An outcry in The Strand led Sir Arthur to resurrect Holmes after his supposed death in The Final Problem.
Others
Several classic novels began as serials. They include
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (take the bad with the good. The racial stereotype here is bad.)
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
Early 20th century
At first, American magazines reprinted stories from Britain. Then, thanks to magazines like Harper’s and the Atlantic Monthly, American fiction began to grow in popularity.
As other magazines appeared, other serializations also appeared:
Black Mask (near and dear to my heart)
Appropriate for this Substack, too.
Pulp magazines proved to be a method that was both cheap to produce and a hotbed for future novels.
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade story, began like this. Before it, all of his Sam Spade and Continental Op stories were, too.
James M. Cain (whom I mentioned in my newsletter) and Carroll John Daly (also mentioned) also took advantage of serialization.
Fanzines
There are hundreds of these devoted to a specific genre, such as science fiction. Some are available on paper. Before 2000, all were. Now, most are PDFs.
Science fiction fanzines are centered on a site, efanzines.com. For hardboiled crime and noir fiction, they’re on many different sites. They include - they’re content for my newsletter, so I’ll save them for now (yes, that’s a plug).
An example
My fanzine, The Original Universe, was devoted to comicbooks (I’m a man of many tastes).
I wrote a serial for it, using a character I created.
The last part I wrote got many comments, critical of a colossal error.
I’ll fix it when I write the ending. I always finish what I start.
My current project
With this newsletter, I’ve begun my hardboiled PI. When I’ve finished his first novel, I intend to serialize it here.
Conclusion
As you’ve seen, there’s a long history of serial fiction in the world. There’ve been great successes, including in hardboiled crime fiction.
I hope to follow them. Their footprints are massive.
Credits
Information from Wikipedia and through Perplexity AI.