The return of the serial?

My dad has told me fondly of what Saturdays were when he was a kid. The Palace Theater, long gone, was the venue and he'd spend much of the day there watching serials and then the feature presentation. Like the downtown trolley and the milkman, the serial is a part of history.

Sure, it rears its head every once in a while. Raiders of the Lost Ark was a loving tribute to the serial. 24 is a modern TV serial. But the serial as a common technique for telling a story died as the single-screen theaters gave way to suburban multi-plexes.

Until now.

When you buy music online, you don't have to buy the entire album any more. You can buy only the songs you like. And if the band can't keep your attention for each of the songs, you don't buy them all.

As books move toward a digital format, the same model may apply to writing. As this Wall Street Journal column points out, books may be headed the same way. Maybe instead of paying $10 (or whatever) to download an entire book, I can download five chapters for a dollar. And if they don't grab me, I can move on to something different.

If that's the case--and it's a big if--the pacing and strategy of a book may change. No more tension and release, building toward an overall climax. Now, a constant build may be required, lest the reader bail out of the book in the middle and find something that promises more immediate gratification.

We can argue all day over whether this is a good thing. I stopped watching 24 a few years ago when it started taking stories that could have easily covered the entire 24 hours and dispensed with them in an hour. Lost has some similar problems. I'd still like to know about Leonard, the guy who sat in the institute with Hurley saying the numbers over and over again. How did he get to know the numbers? Leonard, alas, is a lost detail included in an avalanche of clues and red herrings that overwhelmed us.

Sometimes stories unfold best slowly, building toward an inevitable climax that becomes irresistable as it approaches. For better or worse, such a slow build may become a lot harder to sell in a world where a new distraction is just a download away.