As promised in last week’s post on Twitter’s Fiction Festival, here’s a round up of a few standouts of the online event, which finished this past Sunday.
Four things I took away from the festival, besides learning how to read from the ground up:
1. My personal favorite was Andrew Pyper’s sinister adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic horror novel The Turn of the Screw. Only downside, should blare a massive SPOILER ALERT banner at the top of the account page. Do not ruin this story for yourself by reading the first few tweets! Scroll straight to the bottom of “White House”, which you can read in full here. #socreepy
2. Another fantastic creative endeavor was writer Lucy Coats’ retelling of 100 myths in 100 tweets. Check out this pithy (and alliterative) summary of Odysseus’ encounter with the sirens, below:
You can find a collection of many more of her mythical re-imaginings, including the tales of Leda and the Swan and Heracles, at her twitter account here. #pervyancientgreeks
3. Elliott Holt’s mystery tale had an interesting twist to it. The story was made up of tweets from a crowd of partygoers, unambiguous as to whether what they witnessed was a suicide, an accident, or murder.
The multiple voices create an interesting, interwoven narration. Plus the self-centeredness and banality with which these characters tweet spins an interesting satire on the way we present our lives online for others’ amusement and approval. I think. Scroll down Holt’s twitter page to read this very interesting and suspenseful form of the classic murder mystery. #likecluebutbetter
4. Twit-Lit-Crit: so now that we have twitterature changing the form of storytelling, will literary criticism follow in the same vein? Carmel Doohan of Exeunt Magazine conveyed a critique of the weekend via a series of tweets, just like the authors had done themselves:
Essentially a blank page where any text or format can be uploaded, @storify makes a bricolage of social media.
On it the twitter fiction works, but when encountered on twitter itself it is frustrating; interruptions and RTs spoil the flow
Yet there is something very modernist about it- interruptions incorporated into the fiction; remaining true to the fragmentation of reality
Even the Guardian jumped into the fray, doling out self-effacing reviews in under 140 characters.
It makes me wonder, like Doohan asks, “will the twitter essay forever change the face of criticism? Answers on a postcard.”
Did you have time to check out the Twitter Fiction Festival? If so, what were your take-aways?