Web Serial Novel - Television Tropes & Idioms

Subtrope of Web Original and the prose equivalent of Webcomics such as Sluggy Freelance or Girl Genius (among many others) which happen to have distinct Story Arcs. An author, usually an amateur, publishes a Novel in many short installments (often daily or weekly) on a website.

Quite often, the work in question is some sort of Fan Fic, but sometimes they are completely original works. Most long-form Fan Fic is posted on places like fanfiction.net in installments, and thus would qualify as this trope.

Spiritual Ancestors of this trope are the serialized novels which Charles Dickens' (and many other authors of that time) novels originally published in serial form in newspapers and in Dime Novel form.

See Web Fiction Guide

for an incomplete listing of serial novels, among other forms of online prose fiction.

Examples:

John Dies At The End got started as a bunch of self-proclaimed "retarded horror stories" written as Halloween specials.
The Ed stories, a series of short stories about a Mad Scientist Slacker college student who does everything from teleporting the Sun to sending the entire Earth backwards in time.
- Fine Structure by the same author.
Arcana Magi is a young adult fantasy universe written by H-M Brown. It features a Web Serial Novel of the main series about a teenaged girl, who received a mystical item from one of The Four Gods, and was captured and brainwashed by an Evil Company to serve their needs. He also wrote Arcana Magi Zero, an Alternate Universe Short Story Trilogy about the beginnings of two teenaged girls, who received their magical items from The Four Gods, and try to understand their place in the world.
- The Impossible Man is a comedy web novel also written by H-M Brown, about an Anime and Manga Store owner and the random antics he gets into.
Associated Space, an often hilarious science fiction story written by a friend of a troper.
Tech Infantry, an earlier project involving the author of Associated Space, a collaborative series of stories by multiple authors set in a future world that combines elements of the World Of Darkness and Starship Troopers.
Stephen King has published several novellas in installments on the internet before publishing the completed work in print form.
BecomingABetterWriter, a group of books writen by an amateur New Zealand author and serialised on his website. So far involves Demon Hunting and Werewolf Law.
Color Shock is a tale of two cities. One is an unmappable, black and white maze called the city of all cities where street addresses are replaced with dates that mysteriously stop right before the millennium and musicians play the only color in the world into existence. The other is a high-tech metropolis where three teenage gangs (the Reds, the Blues, and the Greens) fight with colored solid light they can throw from their fingertips. In both cities, a mysterious force seeks to blot out all the color in the world forever. Here's the link, till I get around to making a page.
David Weber's publisher likes to release LOTS of sample chapters of his upcoming books online...but to find out how it ends, you have to buy the actual book.
The Philosophical Significance Of Soda Bubbles is a web novel which begins as a coming of age story and before Deus Ex Machina-ing into a science fiction satire on philosophy, revolving around a group of immortals confused by whether they are gods or scientific flukes, searching dysfunctionally for a messiah.
Metamor City takes place in the same world, and features short stories (and so far one novel, "Making the Cut") in its podcast tales.
The Countryship Yoors follows the adventures of an oddly genre savvy protagonist who, without explanation, ended up in space, aboard a ship the size of a country.
Playing For Keeps was also a podcast novel/comic book before getting published.
Dimension Heroes, a web novel series skewed towards a younger demographic featuring five teens who discover futuristic battle suits and are subsequently thrust into an adventure in which they must save their world from colliding with a parallel dimension.
Legion Of Nothing is a web novel about the descendants of Golden Age superheroes who inherit their grandparents' powers and take on their costumed identities.
Oktober is an interesting web novel. It's updated weekly on Fridays, hasn't missed an update yet. Each chapter is told four different times, once from each character's perspective. It follows the adventures of a journalist, a rockstar, a hunter, and an assassin as they drive across the US, and has a feel of an American road novel mixed with House of Leaves.
Summer Camp is a series of very long novel-length erotica/Coming Of Age stories, initially set at a nudist camp. The story is compelling enough that during my Archive Binge, I ended up skipping most of the sex scenes, or at least just skimming them quickly to check for plot points.
The longer Whateley Universe stories would qualify if anyone cared to run them through a word counter. At the least, they are web serial novellas. In a sense, the stories make up a single, multi-author work with many stories covering the same events from different points of view. It is infamous for being EntryPimped and Trope Overdosed to toxic levels.
- "Ayla and the Tests" is longer than six of the seven Harry Potter novels. And is largely responsible for The Rashomon effect, since it basically retconned or explained several events where Ayla appeared to be 'out of character' or missing from the action.
Fartago, a serialized blog novel by author Tony Caroselli about the adventures of a tribe of cavemen who have found a monolith similar to the one from the opening chapters/scenes of the book/movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not fanfic as Caroselli has said the cavemen are not the same ones seen in the book and movie (the lead one of whom is named "Moon-Watcher" in the book, a name not seen in the blog novel). Indeed, Fartago takes place at least 1 million years after the opening chapters of the book 2001, the tribe in Fartago is apparently much larger and better organized than the one in 2001, and Caroselli has said the monolith has not been created by the same race and not for the same purpose. Caroselli insists the premise is an homage, not fanfic.
Patchwork Champions, a Super Hero story, was a webcomic for two and a half years, and continues to this day as one of these.
''Ted The Caver'' was presented as a spelunker's series of journal entries revolving around a mysterious cave and a creature inside (the actual cave being "Freeway Cave," as the author originally discusses here and is reposted here. The original story is intentionally left unfinished, leaving the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. The story was later used for Thomas Lera's short story "The Fear of Darkness", a backdated hoax that attempts to explain all of the supernatural elements of Ted's story with an added chapter.
Similarly, The Dionaea House, which was told in segments appearing on different websites, every October for three years.
The Descendants is a Super Hero story formatted in such a way that it's a comic book without pictures.
The Saga Of Tuck has been running since 1997, and currently comprises 142 chapters and a bit more than a year of in-story time, not to mention an Alternate Universe side story.
Tales Of MU.
Tasakeru, a mature serial novel series using warring talking animals as allegories for human conflicts.
Three Worlds Collide by Eliezer Yudkowsky, a science-fiction First Contact story concerning the ethics of deals with aliens of very different morality.
Building Tales is a set of serialised short stories, novellas and, apparently, will contain novels in the future. It is written by the artist of The Life Of Nob T Mouse and All Over The House.
Sapphire in Two Words: Espionage Fantasy.
Fanfic author Copperbadge publishes original work here, and to date has two complete novels and is working on a third. Interestingly, he asks readers to comment on any mistakes and to raise questions about the work, which he considers during his revisions.
Though the results aren't nearly long enough to be considered "novels", Bionicle includes web serials as part of their canon. They supplement the books and comics in that they can focus on and flesh out side characters - including the villains - or continue to tell adventures of those whose toys are no longer on the market.
Chaos Fighters, a serial novel series with extreme amounts of fighting scenes.
Podiobooks is a treasure trove for this kind of novel.
Kindness From Strangers by Leradny; a series of generally unrelated short stories with five common themes.
Wingspan: baced on the Chaotic Good angels fall theme with a twist; did you know the Christian idea of redemption had Power Perversion Potential?
The Adventures Of Pat O'Neil is a self-narrative of the life of Pat O'Neil, a "regular guy from Iowa" that somehow ended up battling the forces of Clan Platypus, a organization of ninjas trying to take over the ~~world~~ universe by selling meth.
Hackett is a serial novel that details the adventures of an interdimensional taskforce that works for (and with) the titular Hackett.
The Chakona Space setting started out as a web serial novel called "Forest Tales".
Many Words, a just-kicked-off original fantasy project set in a world that's something of a sendup of various fantasy tropes.
The Adventures Of Fox Tayle is about a regular fox made to be a soldier, but then the government project is cancelled. Fox escapes being killed and is hunted by the FBI for the majority of the story. First published on deviantART.
Super Stories is a new series about superpowered people trying to leave their mark on the world.
The Last Skull is a comic-book-inspired series featuring "teenaged superheroism, explosions and time-travel".
The Flying Cloud, an alternate universe where World War 1 ended early and airships rule the skies.
Magical Security Taskforce follows a group of high schoolers drafted into the titular peacekeeping organization. Written by Adam Pulver, also known for his anime/reality show spoofs and various Digimon fics, including the already-recced-on-this-site The Connection.