Serial stories with short but gripping episodes have been a staple of the cultural world ever since the oil lamps burned down and the children needed to wait until the following night to find out what happened to the monsters.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
The likes of Wattpad, Naver Webtoon, Radish, and Archive of Our Own have seen vast fan bases clamor for that breathless cliffhanger-driven rush. And new technology has only hastened that renaissance, starting with the so-called cell phone novels whose chapters were limited to the number of characters that could be carried in a single text.
The latest addition to this comes from a new TikTok feature, called Pinedrama. This is a microdrama app that features series where each episode is a minute long, grips you by the throat, and leaves you with a cliffhanger. It's another outlet for our storytelling that feels really interesting to explore. And as so often happens, some people will hit the winning, er, formula and make it huge.
The Video Production Value Divide
And talking of interesting storytelling crossovers with video, you will remember that last week I told you about Audible's beta launch of in-app video to promote audiobooks. It's worth (as it so often is) taking a look at Mark Williams's very interesting take on this development here.
In short, he muses about the possibility of a two-tier system emerging in which those with access to high production values gain a traction that those without don't. He also anticipates, as he puts it, quantity quickly outstripping quality, leading essentially to noise. I would add that the platform that will really gain from this is Sora, as many scramble to produce “content” to keep up.
Ambient Reading Videos Emerge
And finally on this little foray into videoland, there is a fascinating piece on Lit Hub about a burgeoning trend: the ambient reading video. Background music has long been a thing (I regularly have some Bach on whilst reading), but now there is a whole industry producing videos to go along with this and get people in the mood for their subject matter.
Apparently having flickering flames in old libraries to go with your Wagner makes it easier to read dark academia (it just makes me nervous of fires).
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