Module 4 - Serialization: The Perfect Marriage of Twitter and Fiction

The concept of Twitter fiction is oxymoronic for me – when trying to fully flesh out a storyline, I think of the classic plotline with fully realized, dynamic change as graphed in a Freytag Triangle:

Simpson, 2012

I know I am employing traditional foundations to rationalize a new concept here; the classic plotline is not altogether dissimilar to the Hero's Journey I included at the bottom of my first NMN blog post. Because of the 140-character limit, it seems to me that trying to reconcile the concept of fiction with a tweet is logically impossible. The examples I have seen on Twitter provide snapshtos or tableaux of story: while intriguing, I have found none that are fully matured.

In my efforts to reconcile the two, considering print narrative and Twitter fiction, the first thing I think of is serialization.  This first came about in 17^th century France (Wikipedia, n.d.) but blossomed internationally during the British Victorian/Japanese Meiji era (Law & Morita, 2000). These stories disseminated not so much because of their popularity but because of their vehicle: the periodical or handbill. Law & Morita note that the English enjoyed an explosion of newspaper distribution in the mid 1850s, while the Japanese saw the same occur in the mid 1880s.  Dickens’ Pickwick Papers (1836) was first published through newspaper and periodical, but by bit, increasing interest as the novel progressed (Wikipedia, n.d.; Law & Morita, 2000). Eisenstein notes that, with the advent of serial fiction, readers had ample time to internalize the material through discussion with others in “communal gathering places” such as “book shops, coffee houses, [and] reading rooms” (2005, p. 84). This strategy, of course, disseminated the plot, increasing interest and demand.  I would argue that the popular following Dickens gained from that strategy was due to its serialization: a systematic release of the plotline, stage by stage.  This was not entirely due to the story itself, but in the way it was released - a starting run of 1,000 copies released in London grew to a 40,000-copy end-run 20 months later (Perdue, n.d.).

Twitter users have realized the potential of the serially-released fictional narrative via print (Eisenstein) or radio, as Andrew Fitzgerald argues in his TED talk embedded in Scott’s Mod 4 post (2013). Fitzgerald cites individual Twitter Fiction writers such as Jennifer Egan, who wrote Black Box, which was released in serial fashion via @NewYorkerFiction (now defunct) on a scheduled, daily release. Fitzgerald also noted Elliot Holt's use of several Twitter accounts to develop her storyline.

Cutting Teeth Hardcover, 2014

I had a chance to explore Twitter Fiction and found a great Twitter Fiction story by Julia Fierro that was named #4 of the top stories to come out of the 2014 Twitter Fiction Festival. Fierro employed the same strategy as Holt, this time developing accounts for emergent characters: she used the characters from her upcoming novel Cutting Teeth to create a Twitter Fiction storyline of strangers on a weekend getaway who find themselves in the same beach house (Prescott, 2014).  As Cutting Teeth was about to be released, I can only assume that this Twitter Fiction venture created some good buzz through her fans as well as those who came by the storyline incidentally.  As Twitter’s original raison d'etre was to advertise, I think that Fierro followed in Dickens' footsteps and capitalized on an awesome marketing strategy.  

So where does Twitter Fiction go from here?  A couple things have come to mind. First, I would propose that the use of a standardized hashtag when releasing any twitter fiction – the term #twitterature or #twitterfiction, combined with #”title” would help greatly its readers and potential followers; dissemination would be potentially lightning-fast as the retweet would yield the same form of dissemination, this time with Twitter as the digital communal gathering place. Second, where traditional serials employed etchings/woodcuts to illustrate, modern digital serialists can include images of any type to reinforce the plotline. Furthermore, memes could be used to further the genre greatly as they could marry plot and image, potentially leading to a new genre: Twitter graphic fiction.

REFERENCES

Cutting Teeth Hardcover. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.juliafierro.com/author/

Eisenstein, E. (2005). Chapter 11: Aspects of the printing revolution. In Crowely & Heyer's (2011) Communication in history: Technology, culture, society (6th ed.). Boston, USA: Pearson (Allyn & Bacon).

Fitzgerald, A. (2013, October 11). TED Talk: Adventures in twitter fiction [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZzmqDMhi0 

Law, G. & Morita, N. (2000). The newspaper novel: Towards an international history. Media History, 6(1), 5-17. Retrieved from http://login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=3807807&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Prescott, L. (2014, March 17). 11 moments at the 2014 Twitter Fiction festival [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.buzzfeed.com/laraprescott/moments-at-the-2014-twitter-fiction-festival#.yvXbabeZa

Serial Literature. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January 28, 2015 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_(literature)

Simpson, J. [Jenn, aka jesais (I know)]. (2012, January 11). Freytag triangle [diagram]. Retrieved from http://akajesais.com/page/2/