Come read Corduroy Mansions, a serialized novel at the Telegraph
By Susan Wilson
Shades of Charles Dickens! Oops wrong season but right author. Just like the serialized novels that Dickens wrote for his London newspaper audience, Alexander McCall Smith is writing a serialized novel for the online version of the Telegraph, a well-known British newspaper.
In Dickens time, the excerpts were weekly installments. Today Smith’s chapters arrive on line daily.
Corduroy Mansions is set in Pimlico, in a four story house that has been turned into flats (apartments) and is inhabited by an assortment of characters. The novel unfolds every weekday for twenty weeks. Currently, we are in the first week, on Chapter 4. The earlier chapters are a quick read online and set up the novels characters and storyline.
The Telegraph is providing the free email delivery of the story in both its written form and as an audio chapter per day. The audio version of the series is being read by Andrew Sachs, better known as Manuel in Fawlty Towers.
An added bonus to reading the online book is the ability to send suggestions and comments to the author after each chapter. In other words, the readers will have the ability to provide input in process and help shape the story and the characters as the story progresses.
The paper is also running a contest encouraging others to submit their own twenty week serialized stories. The author of the best book will get lunch with Alexander McCall Smith.
Alexander McCall Smith is well known for his books, The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, Sunday Philosophy Club, 44 Scotland Street, The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom, Dream Angus, and One City. He has also written a number series Mystery/Machine Collection, Akimbo collection, and the Harriet Bean series.
Being able to make suggestions to such a well known author is incredible. Normally, the only people who are able to provide input are editors and publishers. Now anyone who enjoys reading can provide input into the story.
Other authors have provided serialized books online but rarely with reader input. Stephen King’s The Bullet was an online experiment. Other authors have taken turns in round robin fashion writing a novel with each author building on the chapter(s) written by other authors before them.
These eclectic writing experiments have been offered by ebookstores and authors webpages but not for free by the online version of a newspaper.
The first four chapters have left me hungry for more of the story, but like the rest of the English reading public around the world, I have to wait for tomorrows installment.
Come join me in reading Corduroy Mansion! I think you’ll find it enjoyable.
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