Twitterature

Twitterature (a portmanteau of Twitter and literature) is literary use of the microblogging service of Twitter. It includes various genres, including aphorisms, poetry and fiction that even written with multiple people thorough collaboration, within the 140-character maximum imposed by the medium.

Some work is self-contained; others, such as Twitter novels, extend over multiple "tweets". The character restriction provides a creative challenge.They can last for months, with one or more tweets daily. Context is usually maintained by a unique hashtag: searching by this produces a list of all available tweets in the series. However, it is best to tweet a serial in a form suited to Twitter, in short updates that will stand out in the stream of tweets and encourage the reader to follow and to speculate on the next installment. Examples include Jennifer Egan's "Black Box", first published in about 500 tweets in 2012, and David Mitchell's "The Right Sort", first published as almost 300 tweets sent over one week in 2014.

Twitterature example

The author of a Twitter series is often unknown to the readers. The Twitter account name can be a character in the story or a pseudonym. This anonymity creates an air of authenticity.In a Twitter serialized relay, participants follow each other like runners taking the baton in a relay race. Some have a theme or objective, with each participant contributing one or more tweets; others are stories that each person continues in turn. Again, hashtags unify the contributions. One example of a Twitter relay was launched by the British newspaper The Guardian in fall 2012: famous authors each contributed a micro-narrative with the hashtag #140novel.

Genres

Aphorism

Aphorism Example

The most effective way to learn is by devoting oneself to a single subject for months at a time. Its opposite is school.

Aaron Haspel, @ahaspel

Aphorisms are popular because their brevity is inherently suited to Twitter. People often share well known classic aphorisms on Twitter, but some also seek to craft and share their own brief insights on every conceivable topic. For example, the New York-based programmer Aaron Haspel tweets his own aphorisms, using the Twitter handle @ahaspel (Aaron Haspel) as shown in the example on the right.

Poetry

Poetry Example

 Augusti.
Och fast det är hett
i solen
känns det ibland
känns det ibland
som om jag
faller
handlöst mot hösten.

Göran Greider, @GreiderDD

Haikus are a brief poetic form well suited to Twitter; many examples can be found using the hashtag #haiku. Other forms of poetry can be found under other hashtags or by "following" people who use their Twitter accounts for journals or poetry. For example, the Swedish poet and journalist Göran Greider tweets observations and poems using the Twitter handle @GreiderDD (Göran Greider) as shown in the example on the right.

Fiction

The twitterature fiction type includes fan fiction, retelling of literary classics and legends, micro-short stories, twitter novels, and collaborative works.

• Fan fiction: Twitter accounts have been created for characters in films, TV series, and books. Some of these tweet accounts take the events in the original works as their starting point.
• Literary classics and legends: Literary classics and legends are retold on Twitter, either by characters' tweeting and interacting, or by retelling in tweet format, often in modern language using slang. In 2009 Alexander Aciman and Emmet Rensin published Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter. In 2010 a group of rabbis tweeted the Exodus, with the hashtag #TweetTheExodus; in 2011 The Royal Shakespeare Company and the English game company Mudlark tweeted the story of Romeo and Juliet.

Micro-short story example

I was mowing the lawn. I peered at my neighbor’s immaculate yard; his grass was literally greener. Then a meteor fell atop his lovely house.

Arjun Basu, @ajunbasu

• Micro-short stories: Micro-short stories that fit in a single tweet belong to this type such as those tweeted by Arjun Basu, Twitter user @arjunbasu, which he calls "twisters". An example of tweets from @arjunbasu is shown on the right.

Twitter novel example

I’ve grown to like small places. I like bugs, bug homes, walking stick bugs, blades of grass, ladybug Ferris wheels made out of dandelions.

Nick Belardes, @smallplaces

• Twitter novels: "micro-novels" original to Twitter. An example is Small Places, written by Nick Belardes using the Twitter account @smallplaces. Small Places began on April 25, 2008 with the tweet as shown on the right. Another example is Executive Severance, written by Robert K. Blechman using the Twitter account @RKBs_Twitstery. Executive Severance, billed as the first live-tweeted Twitter Mystery, or "Twitstery," began on May 6, 2009 with the tweet shown on the right.

Twitter mystery example

Willum Mortimus Granger was beside himself. In fact when his body was found the top half was right next to the bottom.

Robert K. Blechman

Collaborative work example

Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled & said, "We don’t love you anymore.

Neil Gaiman

• Collaborative works: Neil Gaiman coined the term "interactive twovel" for an experiment in involving his Twitter followers in collaborating with him on a novel. This was conducted with BBC America Audio Books. The first tweet from Gaiman was as shown on the right. Then, he invited his readers to continue the story under the hashtag #bbcawdio. The result was published as an audiobook under the title Hearts, Keys and Puppetry, with the author given as Neil Gaiman & Twitterverse. Teju Cole sent lines from his short story "Hafiz" to other Twitter users and then retweeted them to assemble the story.

History

Twitter was launched in 2006. The first Twitter novels appeared in 2008. The origins of the term "Twitterature" are hard to determine, but it was popularized by Aciman and Rensin's book. Since then the phenomenon has been discussed in the arts and culture sections of several major newspapers. In addition to "twovel", the terms "twiction" and "tweet fic" (Twitter fiction), "twiller" (Twitter thriller) and "phweeting" (fake tweeting) also exist.

Twitterature has been called a literary genre, but is more accurately an adaptation of various genres to social media. The writing is often experimental or playful; with some authors or initiators seeking to find out how the medium of Twitter affects storytelling or how a story spreads through the medium. A Swedish site called Nanoismer.se was launched in 2011 to "challenge people to write deeper than what Twitter is for."

Further reading

• A. Aciman, E. Rensin, Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter, Penguin Books, 2009.

External links

• Twitter Fiction Festival
• Comic Twitter Fiction #AssangeWikileaks