Twitter Novels are one use of Twitter that many of us would never consider - but there’s a growing number of Twitter Novelists exploring the medium. Today Brandon J. Mendelson, author of The Falcon Can Hear The Falconer (a Twitter Novel) gives some tips for writing Twitter Novels.
A word of caution: As far as English language Twitter novels go, this is new territory. Based on early results, as compiled by ReadWriteWeb, there have not been any success stories. RWW never spelled out what would be defined as a success, but I took their comments to assume no Twitter novelists have crossed into the mainstream or made money. It may be only a matter of time before this changes.
What I’m presenting here are suggestions on how to write and operate your new Twitter novel based on my experience writing “The Falcon Can Hear The Falconerâ€. I hope what I’m proposing will provide a blueprint for interested writers to create successful Twitter novels.
Twitter Novel Tips
1. Throw Out The Manuscript
Twitter is instantaneous. Serializing a manuscript may be easy, but trying to contract and make logical sense of it in 140 character bursts is not. By doing this, you limit the flexibility that Twitter grants in presenting your fiction. Start fresh.
2. Have A Plan
Although there’s no need for a manuscript, you should know where the story is going. I found writing a scene for a play to be more helpful than translating a manuscript for Twitter. The formatting for a scene provides more freedom to work within the spaces you’ve created and allow the story to grow organically. Don’t hesitate to explore.
3. Manage The Clock
What’s great about a Twitter novel is that your content is no longer static. Depending on how committed you are, you could have events happen in real time using services like Tweetlater.
4. Not Just Story. Events
If a character is mugged at 6am, you could post a police announcement on the Twitter novel looking for the perpetrator. What are the characters listening to on the radio? Is someone calling them that’s important to the story? Use Twitpic to show a photo of one of your friends or an actor to show the reader who is calling or what the mugger looks like.
The post doesn’t have to be from your outline, it could be something within the environment that adds to the story.
5. Don’t Bury The Lead
More than five Twitter posts on any given day can be dangerous. You’ll induce reader fatigue, and new readers will get lost quickly.
There’s an assumption that many of your Twitter followers will enjoy your work while on the go, so their time to take in a novel may be limited to short bursts. Focus on each post’s quality and …
6. Move It Forward
Simply put: Each tweet should move the story forward in some way. If it doesn’t, cut it.
7. Newbies And Greenhorns
Finally, you may have readers follow you after the novel has started. I recommend setting up a simple website that contains the story’s updates from where it began. Include this link on your Twitter page. Occasionally remind readers on days that you do not update that they can catch up at this website.
The format is still new, but it won’t be long until we start to read about successful Twitter novelists getting publishing deals. Why? A large following equates to a large potential customer base. If you can show you have a customer base, you are better positioned to land a book deal.
Best of luck to you on your literary journey.
PS from Darren: Have you written or followed any Twitter Novels? I’d love to see links to them and to hear your experience of them in comments below!
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{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
When I started on Twitter, I wanted to start writing Twitter poetry. I created a user name for it and everything. Then I lost my nerve. Maybe it’s time to pick that up.
What a great national novel writing month project, no? Just to try it out for a month and see.
Well this is a novel approach to using twitter.
Interesting idea. I always had the idea that 5+ years from now many people would consider their twitter account to be a living diary or time capsule of their life. Obviously certain tweets wouldn’t quite fit the narrative but I would bet at least 1 in 10 tweets talks about momentous occasions in our lives.
Interesting idea! I’ve heard about the Twitter writing competition, but this takes it to a new level.
I guess the next step would be a collaborative Twitter novel? Now that could be fun, with each writer taking it in turn to write the next segment.
I followed Hooked author, and NYT’s reporter, Matt Richtel’s Twiller for a bit, but just couldn’t maintain interest in novel that emerged in 140 character spurts.
See http://twitter.com/mrichtel
Haven’t really thought of that until now. Really nice idea. But if I were to do that, I think I should come up with a new account.
Maybe a list of novelists to follow would be a nice idea for your next post Darren
Good post Darren:
It’s funny, I’ve actually been pondering over writing a continuing story/”novel” on Twitter the last few weeks.
I had not been aware that there was already interest and experimentation going on! I appreciate your tips!
Hum… good idea… or actually gave me a good idea… as always thanks for your great thoughts. See you on Twitter.com/angelabrooks
I’m thinking something like mmm, I don’t know maybe NaNoTwiMo?
Hmmm. The gears are turning…
George
I like to read so much that I would readily sign up for just about any interesting twitterified novels — I already follow http://twitter.com/othar, which is actually a spin off from the Girl Genius webcomic by Phil and Kaja Foglio. They’re amazing, in my personal opinion. The webcomic is at http://girlgeniusonline.com, and it rocks.
A “novel” idea! Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have time to try it… unless I just dust off one of the ol’ manuscripts that have been sitting around a few years. Could copy-paste sentences on Twitter! ;-0
I’ll definitely look into how others are doing with this… If they’re not just tweeting themselves, this’ll represent a HUGE new writers’ tactic, thanks to Twitter.
PS I’ll blog this excellent post @ http://FiercelyStrategic.blogspot.com
Darren,
This is a GREAT idea… I always think of myself as way ahead of the curve on most hings web related and I had never even considered a twitter novel!
I can just hear the purists grumbling, bemoaning the decline of the English language, watching your 140 characters and all.
Me, I embrace the challenge!
By the way, who has seen a good Tweet 101 for newbies?
This is absolutely a brilliant idea. Off to brainstorm…
Regards,
Alden Smith~
I love Twitter and I’m doing NaNoWriMo but I can’t imagine how this works. Ok, maybe if you’ve already written your novel and throw up your best lines, maybe. Still I feel like the two mediums are in compatible: Twitter is a conversation, a novel is not.
Putting thoughts down on paper (computer) is tough enough. Blood, sweat, and tears, go into writing as anyone who’s written anything knows. To scale that down for Twitter is even worst.
You might set up a Twitter account for your novel where you talk about what you’re working on, ask questions, report book marketing activities, or even be one of your characters but who really wants to read a novel on Twitter? Respectfully, Brandon, you only have 30 followers following your book.
My late wife had written a novel and after she passed I used twitter to post it. http://www.twitter.com/talkingcat It was over 250,000 char and took 3501 posts (about 6 months worth) to get it all up. It is hard to read however, being backwards and all so I also posted the full version at http://www.pick2prod.com
What an awesome idea! This is one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments for sure, but this could absolutely work assuming there isn’t some immature twitterer that tries to ruin the story.
I would like to see a Twitter SMS Diary.
For example;
An integration of my celphone SMS with twitter.
For this, my celphone company has to implement twitter in my account.
When someone sends me a text message my celphone company (t-mobile) will send the text message to my twitter account (private) and it will create an automatic diary.
I guess a company (Twitter) has to partner with all cellphone companies. Big money in this idea (target teenagers). Just think about the advertising you are going to easily sell as well as the partnership.
Hope Twitter people read this and remember the Cubicle Hacker .. wink !
Wow… this is a great idea… I think I’m going to start a novella using Twitter!
Hi,
Creating a good novel or a good story on twitter it’s very hard. Each twitt is like a small episode and at the end of each episode you have to determine the reader to go on. When you only have 140 chars to expose your idea it’s hard.
You could try to create small episodes based on 3 twitter posts written one after another. Who knows. I also think that you should post only the novel : otherwise the readers can get confused.
Thank you
User name on Twitter : WebOptimization
In a way i think a person nee dto have really will to do this, to write a novel in twitter, some people in my case have a lot of updat es a day and including i dont get to real all fo them so it will and will have to be a hard work for the person, adn is so couple letter have to keep the atention of users.
thnaks.
Hahaha, this is awesome. Twitter would be a great format for writing powerful prose - you really have to pay attention to every word and ask yourself if it’s needed.
I’ve been publishing my novel Candyfloss & Pickles for 159 days at twitter.com/robznov . I’d agree with most of the points in your blog, Darren. My comments are:
1. If you’re looking to write a full novel of 100,000 words (which I am), this is a complex process in itself with plot, structure, characterisation etc to consider. Publishing it in 140 character blasts adds even more complexity.
2. I also publish on my own robznov.co.uk blog, with individual excerpts and chapters building into whole pages.
3. The entries update my status on social networking sites including ecademy and facebook.
4. It’s a long haul. Being involved with so many other things creates the challenge of always having some entries in store. You need good time management, because you need to put in work if it’s going to be worth reading.
5. You’ve got to enjoy it. I write for myself. If anyone else enjoys it, that’s great. If anyone would like to pay me for it, that’s even better. (I’ve got plans).
6. I post daily. My workload doesn’t let me post more frequently and I would rather post on a slower but regular basis than leave gaps of a week or more in between.
7. Response is still quite low, although I’ve got a few followers across the world. This is to be expected as there’s still only about 2,000 words published. I would like to this to increase as the wordcount grows.
8. I like the realtime idea - publishing excerpts at the time they are supposed to happen.
9. Perhaps response would be greater and more instant for shorter novels or stories than a long, meandering one like mine.
10. Just do it. It’s a great way of starting to write and getting past the excuses of not having the time. If you’re committed, you’ll write those excerpts, whatever happens.
Summing up, I’m enjoying it and hope it builds.
OK, I’m writing a Twitter novel! I’ll be posting 5 tweets a day, so it should be easier to follow than other I’ve seen so far. I’m also including links to twitpic and youtube for my “illustrations.” “The Adventures of Helen and Daniel” is about two geocachers (see http://www.geocaching.com) who are off to AZ for a camping trip together. It’s mostly about the outdoor journey and their inner journey as a new couple. By request from my followers, there will be a little “romance” and perhaps a vampire (LOL) but it’s mostly to be fun, frivolous, and fluffy fun for my followers. Please feel free to follow, read, and make comments. I also hope to be able to direct the story as my readers suggest, at least to some degree.
http://www.twitter.com/emcofnorthridge
Here are excerpts from the first two chapters:
They each had picked 20 caches to find on the way, and the one who bagged the least had to buy drinks that night.
Helen cruised in to Quartzsite for a pair of regular-sized caches that had been found recently. First, a quick lunch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngk_KTYYvII
Helen just rolled her eyes and gave up. Pammi took another bite of her drippy burger. “How’s Benji? Still in your band?”
“Yeah, my brother’s a dork and a flake, but he’s an excellent drummer. We’ve been playing out a lot lately, even got a regular gig at Spazio’s.”
“You’d look great in that.” Helen turned to see the tall, bearded speaker. He leaned in. “And nothing else.”
Helen blushed as he asked if she were in town for the big swap meet. She said she was just passing through, and noticed his odd accent.
What a fun idea!
thanks for the heads up on this post. I’m taking a few points into consideration when I’m going to write my short story blog post.
I’m not writing a novel. I’m writing short stories at the full 140 characters. I’m calling them Twisters and I’ve posted over 100 in the past 6 weeks. I’m going to keep going until I fall down.
Great post. I’ve had a twitter account for a few months now and one of the first things I wondered was if people were exploring it as a literary medium. I’m happy to see that people are, and wonder what effect it will have on storytelling. I def. like the gonzo element that it could bring, as opposed to someone just cutting and pasting mountains of old copy from their harddrives into 140-character paragraphs.
Anyway, we’ll see how it goes–but I’m throwing my hat into the ring. Just started my own twitter novel experiment. First post is:
whoops, thought I had my head around that html. First line:
The other day I passed this high school kid wearing a yarmulke and for a couple seconds I felt more Jewish
I do not see the benefits of doing it, but it’ll be good idea of testing your self
Writing a TWOVEL,TwitterNovel,on my G1 CellPhone,The Sex Of Poker.Will U read it?
http://twitter.com/edreif
Like your site, and all the great tips that are mentioned on it, it has really helped out. Thanks!
Ha twitter novel. What next twitter health drink?
here’s a new blog devoted to publishing twitter novels. It’s mostly in French (where the form seems to be taking off more quickly than in the US) but it’s just gotten started:
http://twitteroman.blogspot.com/
I actually am writing a story on Twitter–I’ve been writing it in spurts for nearly a year now. I’ve also been following @Othar, a pulp fiction story set in Phil and Kaja Folio’s “Girl Genius” universe. It’s been an interesting experiment.
Although Twitter is becoming one of my most favorite app to use to talk to my followers, it has developed many many new apps. When I say many, I mean many. It is no surprise that it may take a book to learn more about Twitters and all the other apps that goes along with it.
Check out NovelTwitt on Twitter. The beginnings of a good yarn in the vein of Thom Jones (The Pugilist at Rest) and Hemingway.
I am doing a novel that is written from the perspective of two college students. Its a Rashomon style story about an attack on the main male character at a dance on May 16th. It is done exclusively through Twitter. The main characters have their own Twitter accounts and the entire timeline is done in real time.
Here is a novel of mine i’m publishing on twitter:
http://twitter.com/funnyatthetime
Here is an excerpt:
Eyelids stretched open, Oliver slowly awakened to a muted darkness. He became aware of an annoying buzzing sound near his ear. He slapped himself in the ear. The noise did not stop. A vague sense of de ja vu overcame him, and a murky thought told him what to do next. He slapped his arm out at his bedside table. His lamp fell off his bedside table. The buzzing didn’t stop. He slapped again. Third slap lucky and he whacked the big red button on his alarm clock. Silence.
Well, as silent as his place ever got. Which at this hour of the morning, 6:30am if the evil alarm clock was to be believed, was not very silent. His apartment was on the second floor of an old, dilapidated building, above a takeaway and a convenience store, next to a main road overflowing with honking cars and trucks. Despite the previous sales pitch, he had purposely selected it for its location, as it had a nice balcony overlooking said cars where he would often sit and throw raw sausages, tomatos, eggs, slices of watermelon (once), oranges and other things at said cars. He also liked to stare at the cars break lights on the nights he was stoned. He found that vaguely comforting, and a good time-passer. But these days he rarely got stoned. And he rarely had food in the house. So now his location was simply annoying.
He dragged himself out of bed and flopped onto the floor. This was some kind of record for Oliver. Usually he would hear that buzzing three times before he got out of bed. He smiled at his achievement. He heard a buzzing in his ear. He had fallen asleep on the floor. He lurched up on his elbow and slapped at his alarm clock. It stopped on first swat.
He lay back and listened to the cacophony of cars. Everybody on their way to work. Daily routine, driving to work, radios blaring, metal coffins inching along a concrete highway. What a dilligent bunch of robots. Dilligent robots making robot noises. Like honk. And beep. And bleep. No wait, that was the alarm clock. He had fallen asleep again. He reached up and fumbled the alarm clock quiet again. Three strikes you’re out. He looked at the time. 6:55am. It was a fifty minute commute to work. He admitted defeat, and headed off to the bathroom. He really didnt want to go to work. It was only Tuesday.
***
Oliver sat at his desk and stared. He stared at his computer. He stared at the phone. He stared at the keyboard. He had been here before. His computer sat where it normally sat. He sat where he normally sat. The walls were grey. The carpet was grey. His cubicle had carpet on it, but it was maroon in colour. He wondered how long he could sit there and stare at something to pass the time. The computer would be difficult.
twitter novel ? I never have think about that…Its a good idea! Great tips..
This is awesome! I have been thinking about it for awhile, but couldn’t quite figure out how to manage content once I got into the hundreds of tweets. Having a separate website sorted by chapters deals with that! I came up with the idea of calling it a twovel (similar to twaiku) and I’m glad to see that one of the other posters is doing that. I’ll check out your efforts and also go off to combat my own writer’s block.
At the moment, I have 3 twitter accounts that I’m using in various ways - one mostly in twaiku, one “maintained” by my cat (slightly bored with this one) and connexpassenger - which I’m hoping will be used as a shared space for Melburnians and others to comment about public transport. I only just started that one, so I’m not sure if it’ll fly, but it would be great if it does…
happy tweeting, folks!