How to Write a Twitter Novel

Twitter is a social networking and communication tool which allows users to communicate in 140 character status updates or "tweets." While Twitter is primarily used for direct communication and musings, many people have starting using the site in creative ways such as writing Twitter Novels--a novel composed of short passages of 140 characters or less.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Persistence
• A Twitter Account

1. Start with a solid idea and a general direction for your story. Just because Twitter only allows 140 letters per post, it doesn't mean you should fly by the seat of your pants while writing. A Twitter novel may have more potentiality, and interactivity than a normal novel, but it is important to begin with some direction and major characters in mind.

2. Use action over exposition. 140 characters is not very many. To write effectively in so few words, a story needs to be action oriented, spending little time on narration and exposition. The story needs to move somewhere reasonably fast, or the audience will quickly lose interest after a few posts. Make every word count.

3. Be consistent, but don't overpost. When writing a novel, ideas sometimes pop into your head so fast you hardly have the time to write them all down. Resist the urge to write out several pages worth of text and just break it up into bite sized posts. Try to limit yourself to five or fewer posts a day, so as not to overwhelm readers. Focus on quality and action, not quantity.

4. Stay focused on one major topic or theme. If you are writing on Twitter, chances are readers will come in part way thought the story, and may wish to go back and read from the beginning. You want current events to relate back to everything else that has happened. Don't jump between many difference characters, or include multiple plot lines. Keep it simple.

5. Have fun. A Twitter novel should be used as a creative experiment. Chances are you won't attract many readers other than friends and occasional onlookers.

Tips & Warnings

• Consider posting the novel on a separate site in sequential order to make it easier for people to go back and read from the beginning in the correct order.

Resources

• Twitter

[talkingcat]

on 7/12/2009 I posted my late wife’s novel on Twitter last year (@talkingcat) . 3501 entries over 5 months. I did get some requests to be able to read it front to back, so it got posted at www.pick2prod.com. It would be great have a story written the way twitter displays the posts. That is your first post, is the end of the book, the last post, the start.