Twitter Novel

Are people writing novels in twitter? What would a twitter novel look like?

People in Japan are writing novels on cell phones, are they writing twitter novels in the US?

A twitter novel... I imagine something like a serialized novel, Dickens might have written a twitter novel.  The perfect hyperlinked, annotated novel, since each line (140 characters) can follow its own thread -  David Foster Wallace might have written a twitter novel.    Readers can annotate the novel while it is being written -reader and writer is blurred.   Is this distinction, even, an anachronism?.

 

A quick google search yielded  a few twitter novel projects on readwriteweb, A mystery, young adult novels - these look thought provoking. BUT, I don't think I could read a novel in l33t speak.   I sort of like the idea of taking existing works and porting them over to twitter.   The  Feneon works are a perfect example of this 'novels' in three lines.  Again, this brings to mind Samuel Pepys' diary in blog format.  

Daily Lit expands on this idea a bit and allows users to subscribe to twitter book feeds.  Daily Lit also provides a book discussion feature, as well as literary exercise feature, all through the twitter format.    So this is interesting, using twitter as a platform to power an idea, rather than a way to send status updates.  How about twittering song lyrics, or cooking recipes, or bills in congress? 

Individual tweets are generally discreet, unconnected bits. What sort of form will arise once we start linking tweets together? Will this even happen? Does anyone want to read or write works like this?  I should start experimenting on my twitter feed!