Why You Should Read Web Fiction

A beginner's guide to an underappreciated format

For the holiday weekend, something a bit different. I want to talk about one of my favorite things on the internet. It’s a format that doesn’t get much respect, and that I find to be criminally underappreciated. Today, let’s talk about web fiction.

---

What is Web Fiction?

The format itself goes by several different names. These stories might be called web novels, web fiction, or web serials. But regardless of the name they have several things in common. They’re stories that are published episodically on the internet - usually one chapter at a time. Sometimes they have their own dedicated website, and sometimes they’re on a platform like Royal Road. Fast authors may publish 3-4 chapters a week, slower authors only once a week. They share some DNA with fan fiction, but web fiction is almost always original IP and not predicated on existing characters.

This type of serialized production is almost non-existent in proper literature today, but that wasn’t always the case. Most novels in the Victorian era were first published in a serial format. Now prestigious magazines like Harper’s or The Atlantic got their start publishing serialized content in the 1800s. Sherlock Holmes was first published as a serial. Virtually all of Charles Dickens’ great works like A Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations were published a single chapter at a time. Stories like this dominated literature during this era, often costing only a penny per chapter.

I don’t know the history of why serialization became less popular for literature, but the practice continues across other mediums. Comic books are serialized stories. Soap operas are serialized.¹ Even our movie franchises are serialized these days - the latest Marvel movies are adding on to a single continuous story that stretches back to 2008’s Iron Man. And while mainstream novels are almost never published in serial format any longer, web novels have kept the format alive. The modern internet makes it easier than ever to self-publish - just create a simple WordPress blog or log into WattPad, and you’re writing within minutes. Web serials are especially popular in China, where almost half the population reads them.

Why Should I Read Web Fiction?

Let me start out with a warning - there’s an enormous amount of absolutely terrible web fiction out there. The great thing about zero-barrier publishing is that anyone can share their work for free to the entire internet. But the downside to zero-barrier publishing is that anyone can share their work for free to the entire internet. Part of jumping into this genre is knowing where to look, because if you just pick a random work from a random author, it’ll probably be terrible.

But with that said, there are some genuinely great stories out there. Several of the more successful authors have turned web publishing into their full time jobs and make substantial money from their fans. And there are real advantages to the format that make it more exciting than regular publishing.

Price

Virtually every major work of web fiction is available for free. Almost every author is going to have a voluntary mechanism for payment (for instance, a Patreon or a tip jar), and authors will often include bonuses for paying subscribers like releasing chapters a week early. But in almost all cases, the full story is available for free to anyone who’d like to read it.

I’d like to remind you, as a content creator, that if you read an entire story and enjoy it you should find a way to pay! Buy some merch, donate to a Patreon, become a paid sub, etc. We’ve all gotta eat out here. Be a good fan. But it’s undeniably an advantage that you can read for free if you want to.

Speed

I’m a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, and one of my favorite series of all time is George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire². It’s an incredible set of books with gripping drama, fully realized characters, incredible lore… and it also hasn’t had a new book come out in more than a decade. I expect Martin to die before ever publishing The Winds of Winter, which fans have been expecting for more than 13 years.

By contrast, almost all web serials update once a week at minimum. Reached a cliff hanger? Can’t wait to see what happens next? Don’t worry, you’ll only have to wait a couple of days. Or in the case of popular finished works, you’ll just have to click the ‘Next Chapter’ button.

Creativity

The downside to ‘anyone can write this’ is that there’s a lot of repetitive and generic schlock that’s not written very well. But the upside is that it allows authors to take chances on ideas that are different and innovative. And while much of that kind of experimentation doesn’t work, some of it does.

Web fiction has some of the most creatively built fantasy and science fiction worlds I’ve ever seen in any format, including traditional fiction, TV, movies, etc. The worlds people build are endlessly inventive and innovative. Mainstream novels don’t have the same insane variety of story mechanics and plot twists, and best web serials have truly great twists.

Community

If you’re reading a web serial as it comes out, there’s a magic to following it as part of a community. There’s almost always a comment section, a Discord channel, or a subreddit where fans gather to discuss what happened in the latest chapter. They may draw fan art, they may speculate and create theories about where the story is going.

One thing I find regrettable about the Netflixization of content is that we no longer experience cultural moments simultaneously. The standard streaming model is to dump an entire season of TV all at once,³ and let people watch it on their own schedule. That’s convenient, but I miss the days when you knew you’d be watching a particular show at a particular time - especially because you knew everyone else would be doing the same thing. And as soon as the show ended, you could rush online to discuss it with a bunch of people all having the same real-time reactions as you. And the next day at work or school, you’d all be chatting about it.

There’s a much livelier community feeling from real time, synced reactions than you could ever get from commentary spread over weeks or months. And the community you get when reading a popular web novel is far better than what you’d get from a comparable traditional novel.

Where Do I Start?

There are a number of places you can begin. If you want to start with a curated list of highly recommended and popular web novels, check out the All Time Favorites at TopWebFiction.com. There are also leaderboards of the most popular and best rated stories at sites like Royal Road and WattPad. In my experience Royal Road leans more towards fantasy/sci-fi novels and WattPad leans more into romance and young adult/slice of life stories.

If you want to jump directly into the deep end, you can check out subreddits like /r/ProgressionFantasy, /r/WebNovels or /r/RedditSerials. Once you’ve jumped in to a story you may want to check out story-specific subreddits like /r/Parahumans or /r/PracticalGuideToEvil.

That sounds like too much work. Just tell me what to read!

I thought you’d never ask.

A word of warning - I mostly read sci-fi and fantasy web fiction, so my recommendations will be tailored in that direction. I tend to like stories that start small and build to enormous scale, and I’m pretty tolerant of veeeeeery long stories.

Mother of Learning

Fan Art of Zorian from Mother of Learning

This isn’t my favorite web serial of all time, but it is #1 all time on Royal Road’s ‘Best Rated’ list, and it’s a fun story. It follows the tried-and-true formula of Main Character Is A Student At a Magical Academy, but quickly diverges by killing that main character (Zorian) early in the story. Our hero then wakes up again a day before his death, and realizes he’s stuck in a time loop. The story centers around Zorian having to improve his magical ability while stuck in the time loop so he can eventually figure out what’s going on and how to break free from his temporal prison.

I found the main character fairly annoying at first, but it’s fairly well written and the main character does come around. Not my favorite overall, but lots of people seem to really like it.

Unsong

By far the most unique web novel I’ve ever read. The premise for Unsong is essentially “What if Kabbalistic Judaism was literally true?”. As in, the plot begins with the crew of Apollo 8 trying to reach the moon’s orbit, but crashing into the crystal sphere that surrounds the Earth, as described in some obscure part of the Talmud. From there it expands outward trying to describe how this would work in the real world. Giant corporations set up research labs trying to discover the kabbalistic names of god, because it turns out those grant special powers. Angels turn out to be real, and slip in through the cracks in the crystal sphere caused by the Apollo crash. Hell is a real place, not metaphorical, and they begin livestreaming torture.

Unsong is written by Scott Alexander of SlateStarCodex/AstralCodexTen fame. At 95 chapters, it’s one of the shorter completed works out there. Highly recommended if you’re a nerd for theological debates and bad puns.

The Wandering Inn

Isekai is a sub-genre of web fiction that involves a regular person from our world being transported to a fantasy or science fiction setting, and The Wandering Inn is probably the most famous and successful work in the isekai formula. It follows Erin Solstice, a regular 20-year old girl from Michigan, as she and others from Earth are dropped in a world with magic, monsters, dragons, wizards, and more.

The Wandering Inn also operates in the tradition of progression fantasy, where there’s a focus on characters ‘levelling up’ and getting more powerful as the story develops. In this case, the levelling is literal - people in this strange new world have actual classes and levels like characters in a video game would. Erin meets a guardsman, but he’s actually a [Guardsman] and is at Level 23 and proud of it. As you gain levels, you also gain Skills when you level up - A [Baker] might get the skill of [Fast Rising Bread] while an [Archer] might receive a skill of [Piercing Arrows].

The Wandering Inn has its faults. The story takes too long to really get going, and it drags at points. It’s far, far too long (more than 7 million words at this point and still ongoing). But for all its faults, it still has moments that have blown me away. The world building is awesome, the levelling system is unique and very creative, and the characters are complex and sympathetic. When the story drags, it can be a bit annoying - but when The Wandering Inn hits its high points it can be absolutely incredible. Recommended for those who don’t mind jumping into something with a serious time commitment.

Worm

Fan art of Taylor Hebert from Worm

My second favorite piece of web fiction ever. Worm is a teenage superpower fantasy set on the current day Earth, and follows a protagonist named Taylor Hebert whose superpower is that she can control bugs.

This seems like a lame superpower compared to people who can fly, shoot lasers or have super strength and speed, but Worm explores how a seemingly minor power can actually be used in creative and surprising ways to overcome superior opponents. Worm is one of the best-written serials I’ve read in terms of the quality of prose. It also has one of the best progression spirals I’ve ever read. It begins as a story centered on one girl and her exploits in her local neighborhood, then gradually expands to her entire city, her region, and eventually the entire world. It builds an enormous mystery - where do powers come from? - why are there unstoppable monsters now ravaging humanity? - and builds and builds and builds until a grand conclusion that wraps everything up in an incredibly satisfying way. Many people consider Worm the absolute pinnacle of web fiction, and it’s hard to say they’re wrong.

Worm also has spinoff stories like Ward.

Practical Guide To Evil

Fan art of Catherine Foundling from Practical Guide to Evil

With nothing against Worm, which I love, I think a different web serial is the pinnacle of the format: A Practical Guide to Evil.

I sometimes worry that I’m overselling it and setting people up for disappointment, but A Practical Guide to Evil is phenomenal. I’ve read the greats like LeGuin, Bradbury, Clarke, Orwell and Heinlein. I’ve read classics like Dune, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and more. I’ve read everything Isaac Asmiov ever published. And I’m telling you that A Practical Guide to Evil is the greatest science fiction or fantasy story I’ve ever seen, in any format. Period.

The story takes place in a fairly standard fantasy setting with knights, wizards, etc. But there are two important innovations in the setting. The first is that narrative is a real force in this world, as real as gravity. Tropes are real. Villains quickly learn not to throw heroes off cliffs, because in stories heroes always survive being thrown off a cliff. Heroes learn that if you can trick a villain into giving a haughty monologue, their chances of winning an ironically timed heroic victory increase dramatically. Narrative exists and everyone in the world learns how to maneuver around it.

The second innovation is that as a result of narrative, some people gain capital-R Roles. They inhabit a narrative trope so successfully that they become that trope and gain powers from it. Imagine you were reading a story or watching a movie, where a small detachment of twenty generic medieval soldiers are walking down a road. A single person then appears to block the road, a mysterious figure in cloak with only a sword in hand. From everything you know about narrative and stories, who’s going to win this encounter? It’s obviously the lone swordsman. And in this world, if you lean hard enough into that trope you’re no longer just a lone swordsman. You become the Lone Swordsman, the embodiment of that story.

Practical Guide is amazingly creative in how it builds stories that take this meta-narrative force into account. It follows one girl as she gains a Role and attempts to save her Kingdom, embracing a villain’s role because all the heroes end up righteously dead. It’s genuinely funny. The grand narrative arc builds and builds and took my breath away. It has story beats that legitimately made me cry. It’s remarkably well written, barring the annoying exception that the author never went back to fix any typos. It’s got one of the most satisfying conclusions to a story I’ve ever read. I really can’t recommend it strongly enough. If you like fantasy even a little bit, commit to reading the first 5-10 chapters. You’ll either be sucked in at that point or not.

---

A true story - this post was delayed because as I was typing it up, I got sucked in again to a couple of my favorite web novels and ending up binging them until 3am, by which point I realized I wasn’t going to finish the post on time. That’s how addictive the best web fiction can be.

Maybe you won’t enjoy them, but I’m guessing that many of you will. So jump in! Give some of these stories a chance. And I’ll see you in a couple days as we get back to the regular Infinite Scroll content.

1. My wife makes fun of me because sometimes I’ll call the web serials I’m reading “my stories” like a grandma watching her daytime soap operas.

2. Also known as ‘Game of Thrones’

3. Luckily some shows are still released this way, but it’s no longer standard.