Twitlit actually exists….(of course)
Out of interest I recently googled the term Twitlit just to see who had already coined the phrase. This news will be real old hat to hardened Twitter users, but I discovered that a competition to write a story in exactly 140 characters had been carried out last year. It received over 300 entries!
To be honest, initially I was incredibly sceptical. When I first thought of the term Twitlit, I thought of it in slightly derogatory terms. However, once I began to read through the winning entries I was pleasantly surprised. The one key element that emerged for me from a storytelling point of view, is that they all had an incredible hook. They left you wanting more. Here’s a couple of examples of the winning entries:
“Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.
Tony was a snitch, so I wasn’t surprised when his torso turned up in the river. What did surprise me, though, was where they found his head.
They did what all good stories do – they described a situation and then made you look at that situation in a new light. It is some feat as far as I am concerned to write a story in such a short space.
I’m certainly not advocating that we ditch the long form novel. However, it could be quite an interesting exercise in making sure that when we write, every word counts.
You can check out all the winning entries here.
I’d be extremely interested to hear from anyone that has heard of any other experimental uses for Twitter. Has anyone built up a fanbase for their latest novel, using regular Twitter updates with lines from their novels?
