Telegraph Begins Interactive Online Novel

Readers could have a say in the outcome of a new novel being serialised online by The Telegraph.

Each new chapter of Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith will be available exclusively every weekday on Telegraph.co.uk for the next 20 weeks.



The text version of the new serial novel can be accessed on the website, via email updates or through an RSS feed.

Plus an audio version of each chapter will be uploaded every day and available as a daily podcast via the website or through iTunes.

And readers are being encouraged to get involved by submitting their comments and questions online, where they could be read by the author himself.

McCall Smith, author of the successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series of books, explains the interactive nature of the project.

“Readers will also be able to contact me with suggestions as to how the plot should unfold, as at any time in the publication of the novel I shall only be about 20 episodes ahead of the one that is published that day.

“This should make the novel interactive - to some extent at least. I obviously have my own ideas of what will happen, but I shall be open to persuasion.”

If this wasn’t enough to whet the appetites of McCall Smith fans, Telegraph.co.uk also has a writing competition where the winner gets to meet the writer himself, plus the site has online profiles of each character as they appear and a link to a Google Map showing the real-life setting for the imagined mansion.

Further details can be found on Guardian.co.uk and The Editors Weblog.