Serialization in David Copperfield

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There would be a lot more pressure put on an author writing a book in instalments, and this would apply to Charles Dickens when he wrote David Copperfield. Writing in serial form would keep the reader's attention and anticipation piqued because they were limited as to how much material they can read at one time. It is also a means of control by the author; the reader can only read and find out as much as the author allows them to. For the reader to want to read and buy the next instalment in the series the author would have to end with a cliffhanger in each chapter to keep the readers in suspense.

Writing a novel using the serialization format would be a challenging and demanding undertaking. There are obligations to a set reader base who expect a certain standard, and there are also deadlines to meet for delivery with new material. It would be important to the author to meet requirements not just for his or her readers but also for their livelihood, and profit would choose what gets published. Much is the same with television today; if a show has no regular audience and fan base, it will be cancelled. Shows that continually build on a storyline will have to use the same cliffhanger technique as novelists do to keep the viewer coming back the next week.

An added feature that Dickens used with each release was the illustrations in each issue. These images would illustrate to the reader precisely how to envision what the characters and setting looked like. Dickens would limit the imagination of the reader this way; he did not let the mind picture an inaccurate interpretation of his characters. This was another means of control for the author.

Dickens would have to keep his characters appealing; whether they were heroic or villainous, Dickens would have more room for creativity and changeability with his characters based on the reader's response as opposed to his contemporary literary critics. In David Copperfield each instalment leaves the reader wondering what is going to happen and how the characters will develop. At the end of the second number, the reader is left with David's idea of his new best friend Steerforth: "He was a person of great power in my eyes; that was of course the reason of my mind running on him. No veiled future dimly glanced upon him in the moonbeams" (44).

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