As someone highly interested in writing in general and of late, Webserials in particular I like to comment on things, and as much as I love and support Tales of MU, by Alexandria Erin – I do wonder at the sites design. Of course, having read in excess of three hundred chapters (yes, you heard right – excess of three hundred) of AE’s work. I can honestly say I’m hooked, and even if she stays with her current site design – as long as theres something to read, I’m there.I’m also not begruding her because she has ads on her site, just so you know.
As some of you may be aware, I’ve got a little Webserial of my own, Moondust. It’s on Hiatus because I couldn’t seem to get into it or keep up – originally it was meant to be a combined effort of my friend Ashlee and myself. One of the first things I took into consideration was Site Design. Traditional Publishing has a standard of books and papers and that lovely smell that comes along with it. People love books, they curl up with them on a chair o in their beds late at night. They take them on buses, on trains and they’ve been around seemingly forever. They’re familiar and comfortable.
The internet, and therefore webserials – however have what? Technology, need for internet connections, devices that aren’t so cosy on a rainy day. To me it seems that people except to only like stories that come from tangible books.. and Webserial’s just aren’t like that, unless they have a printed edition as well.
But I’ve gone a bit off track here, I have so much to say about Webserials and I’m distracting myself. One reason people might find webserials unappealing is the look. Not all writers are artists in other respects, and far less are web designers. I use wordpress, an so do quite a few others who do webserials so I’ll use wordpress to continue this post – sorry guys who use other software.
Also I should probably mention I’m not referring to WordPress.com, but the one you can install on your own site.
So what do we want to look for in a website design for a webserial?
- Readability! It’s a webserial, which obvious means you need people to be able to read it. What this means seems to be lost on some, though.The main point is a good sizes and clear font, things like Arial, Veranda, Times New Roman, Georgia and the like.
- A pleasing but simple colour scheme – simple is optional, I suppose – but you should want your readers enthralled by the words not just the layout.
- Plenty of space for your writing to shine. Please, please no tiny content columns! Too much scrolling for a relatively normally sized chapter will both annoy and scare certain people away.
Thee are certainly other things to consider, but these would be the main points. Of course, as I said before – not everyone has a clue about web design, and I know not everyone can afford to pay for someone to make them their own special theme. Therefore, the logical option would be to find good and free themes – that could be customized easily enough.
I told you I’d get to my point eventually!
I’ve rounded up some good themes that I think are suitable for webserials and the like. I haven’t tried them all, but I got screenshots and have links and such. Below each Screenshot I’ll explain why I think it’s a good theme, and for what sort of story I think it would suit best. Remember to always check out if the theme creators give support/allow modifications and their licenses.
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