High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a series ? namely, its order. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format (within a genre) by which a story is told in contiguous (typically chronological) installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication.More generally, "serial" is applied in library and information science to materials "in any medium issued under the same title in a succession of discrete parts, usually numbered (or dated) and appearing at regular or irregular intervals with no predetermined conclusion.The idea of stories being told in serial form dates back to the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which consisted of a series of serialized stories, or "serialized novels" or novellas. Its frame story is about Sheherazade telling stories to King Shahriyar, and she needs to keep him interested in each of the stories, to prevent his executing her the next morning. She often tells the stories in a series, beginning each story with a narrative hook, leaving off with a cliffhanger, and continuing the story the next night.