Earlier this week I wrote about writers using Twitter to deliver short stories a few lines at a time, á la the cell phone novel craze in Japan.
And today I have a list of TwitLitters. These writers are either telling a tale tweet by tweet, or delivering 140-character and less micro fiction stories.
Bravo to these writers for experimenting in a new fiction format. I’m following them all to see how they merge tales and technology.
- Sixwordstories. Like Smith Magazine, tales that are just six words long.
- Jeffrey Somers. Science fiction novelist, short story writer and creator of the zine “The Inner Swine” begins his Twitter serial on January 26th.
- Matt Richtel. Author of the novel Hooked and NY Times business and technology journalist tells a “Twiller” (Twitter thriller) 140 characters at a time.
- MyLifein140. Nikki Katz’s sixteen-year-old fictional character learns that she can change her world by editing photos in the school’s Yearbook room.
- Slice. A digital story-telling experiment by the UK division of Penguin books called We Tell Stories. Six authors told six stories over the course of six weeks. This teen novel only attracted about 100 followers, but TwitLit is still in its infancy. Teens are typically early adopters of technology, so I suspect once word gets out, they may follow in droves, especially if a well-known author introduces them to this story-telling medium.
- Fuel Dump. Monk screenwriter Tom Scharpling just began this microblogging book in December. Look for posts marked #FD.
- Joy Motel. A colloborative effort between a short story writer and an adman, this sci-fi Twitter novel has attracted 145 followers.
- David Miller. A senior editor with Matador, an interactive travel magazine and online community, David began his Twitter novel in December.
Do you know of other Twitter novels and stories? What do you think about TwitLit? Exciting new venue? Or harbinger of a literary doomsday?
8 comments
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January 23, 2009 at 11:44 am
Christine
This is not a very helpful comment, but boy, I just love that genre name, TwitLit!
February 25, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Science Fiction Writers on Twitter « digiphile
[…] I didn’t try to list any of the Twitter serials that have been going online of late. I aimed for authors who have published work that Isaac Asimov […]
May 17, 2009 at 4:05 pm
kathleen duey
Well, as a practitioner, I have to say writing an online, real-time twitternovel has been good for me artistically. I do have published books, but this is kind of a new form and it is fascinating to me.
November 17, 2009 at 6:42 am
A twitter novelist
Another twitter novel just starting is
Whodunit140 . You can follow at @whodunit140 on twitter.
I think you can guess the genre from the name!
February 6, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Visual Arts Junction » Blog Archive » The Self-Publishing Route I Chose
[…] the hat into the publishing ring for us to dance around with twitter novels, (called twovels) stories and TV Serials. You can get your twitips about writing them right here. In addition to fiction, […]
August 23, 2010 at 12:44 pm
VHF
There’s a short story being tweeted over the next few months under #vhfstr1 (follow on @vhfolland) as part of a promo for a novel.
January 22, 2019 at 9:11 am
Mary
You can change the font, color palate, direction of the words, and maximum word count. You can even link phrases with the tilde symbol (~) so they appear together. Keep in mind that Wordle’s gallery is uncensored, so it might not be appropriate for lil’ ones.
January 22, 2019 at 9:12 am
Mary
Yeah, I changed the name of my February blogfest. Mostly because “Children’s” didn’t fit on the candy heart generator. Oh, the sacrifices we make for our art.Visit W3Ssadchools
Here’s a sneak peek at the upcoming author interviews…