140-character fiction

I'd like to start off today's blog with my favourite literature-themed Twitter joke:

Why doesn't George R.R. Martin use twitter? Because he killed all 140 characters. #gameofthrones
— Harlem Sheikh (@ingloriousClos) June 3, 2013

I've been on Twitter for a couple of years now, but I'm generally more of a dabbler. So, this week's NMN module is broadening my perspective (thus helping justify my tuition).

For my #NMN tweets, I stuck with what I would consider the purest and simplest form of Twitter fiction: complete stories told within the 140-character bounds of a single tweet. My first example:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/12/twitter-fiction-140-character-novels

I couldn't find another example on the web that accomplished so much in the space. It's a complete min-narrative—setup, dramatic tension, resolution (complete with a twist). Ten sentences, including the use of a dating website initialism (GSOH - good sense of humour) to stretch things out even further.

My second example is a stark contrast: a single, lovely sentence that utilizes the reader's own cultural literacy (in this case, knowledge of the Old Testament) to expand the narrative's borders.

http://nanoism.net/stories/590/

Twitter fiction erases many of the barriers of working within traditional print fiction. Anyone can do it. It doesn't take much time (although it does require a great deal of creativity, if done well). You have access to the same platform as anyone else; there's no mediation between you and your audience.

Much of the Twitter fiction I read on the Web could be better described as setups, or clever short jokes, rather than what I would consider narratives. The two examples I chose, though, are fully developed snippets of literature. They are true short stories, although they take the concept of "short" to a new level.

At the same time, my two examples don't change the medium of print fiction greatly, except in terms of brevity and platform. Both are self-contained text stories, published by a single author at a single point of time.

I went down a bit of a Twitter-fiction wormhole, however, when I viewed this TED talk (embedded below) about the subject. Andrew Fitzgerald talks about several new expressions of Twitter. The New Yorker "broadcasts" a short story by author Jennifer Egan, via Tweets during an hour each week. Crimer Show parodies U.K. series television. Fictional West Wing characters engage with actual modern-day current events. Author Eliot Holt sets up a mystery story using his own Twitter account, and then executes it through additional accounts he sets up for his various characters (you can read the entire result here on Storify).

(Update, 12 hours later: Just working my way through this week's reading list, and discovered that Jessica assigned this very video. I didn't know beforehand, honest!)

I think that's where the truly exciting future of Twitter fiction lies (and fiction on other Internet platforms)—authors using technology to stretch and even reinvent the very idea of literature.

References

Fitzgerald, A. (2013, October 11). Andrew Fitzgerald: Adventures in Twitter fiction. Retrieved January 27, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZzmqDMhi0

Orloske, S. (2014, April 6). 590. Retrieved January 27, 2015, from http://nanoism.net/stories/590/

Twitter fiction: 21 authors try their hand at 140-character novels. (2012, October 15). Retrieved January 27, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/12/twitter-fiction-140-character-novels