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WHEN YOU THINK of Twitter, the thoughts most likely to spring to mind would be 140 characters, news updates, parody accounts, and overall, a quick and snappy service.
Chances are story telling wouldn’t be as high up, but it’s a section of the site that is growing in popularity. The concept of twitterature, which is the telling of popular stories in 20 tweets or fewer, has been around for a while so the next obvious step is to create original stories using the medium.
That’s the premise of the Twitter Fiction Festival, an event designed to tell original stories within the confines of the site. Currently in its second year, the event has 52 entrants tweeting their own stories around the clock, using everything the site has to offer.
While there is the option of using traditional tweets, others are using images, vines, retweets, multiple twitter accounts and getting suggestions from the public to shape their story.
One will chronicle the fears the hopes, fears and frustrations of passengers and staff who have been left stranded in an airport because of a snowstorm using tweets, images, maps and video, while another will be tweeting the story of Star Wars, specifically what happened on Bespin (the second half of The Empire Strikes Back), using multiple accounts and in the style of Shakespeare.
Experimentation
In short, the focus is very on experimentation and seeing just how far the medium can be pushed.
One of the authors taking part is Rebecca Kemp, who is based in Tralee, Co. Kerry. Her story, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, is straightforward, but the twist is that while the main character shrinks, so do the tweets.
While the first tweet starts off with 140 characters, subsequent tweets will use one character less, meaning the last tweet will only be one character long.
When she originally suggested the idea, Kemp didn’t put too much thought behind it, believing that she wouldn’t hear back from the organisers, but when the judges asked her to expand upon it and show them how it would work, the idea gathered pace.
“When they (the judges) came back and asked ‘give us some examples, give us some idea of the story,’ I thought, ‘I’m going to have to sit down and do this, really,’” joked Kemp. “So I did that and fleshed out the idea a bit more and then again thought ‘well, never mind, we won’t hear back,’ but then got another email back from them saying… you’ve made it through to the final”
Kemp will be joining a diverse group of participants from eleven different countries, each of them approaching the medium in their own, unique way. While the first festival was a way of testing the waters, the second one will be a real indicator of just how far it can be taken.
The constraints of Twitter, while they present certain challenges, allows scope for creativity as well. It forces authors to cut to the chase, and even with multiple tweets, there’s very little room for expanding upon a point without upsetting the flow of a story.
As Kemp puts it: “you have to tell a story, tell it directly and something has to happen rather than you waffle on.”
It’s forced me to think differently about my writing because I normally [focus on] creative writing where I can write long sentences… and you can’t in Twitter. It’s been a really interesting discipline for me to have looked at and experimented with.
The #TwitterFiction festival will take place between 12th – 16th March around the clock, while Kemp’s story will be tweeted on Sunday 16th March between 10am to 12pm.
OK,
Review of an Bórd Pleanála and DCC voting on the minimum size for a habitable shoebox.
Could somebody tell Noonan that the country needs homes, not housing.
What’s worse Paul, the new updated shoeboxes they are going to build will cost circa €45k each.
Noonan doesn’t care Paul he has a gold caret pension no matter what….
@Paul – this is the new ‘stack and pack’ communist Agenda 21 compliant housing.
€45.5k per house? This won’t happen.
It’s not as simple as 45k each, the 500m will build a few, these get sold for a profit which in turn builds more. They can also use it to or leverage more money.
Yes, with current minimum standards and regulations; I’m very curious if this is achievable.
Leverage above 2 to 1 in a depressed economy is risky enough, the figures don’t add up. Can’t be throwing half a billion of our cash around willy nilly. Starting to look like a feeding frenzy around here.
homes not dog boxes.What sort of a house could be built for 45.000 euros. are there any of these fools proposing such dog boxes.With their big pensions and expenses.GET A GRIP.What about all the houses been held by NAMA give these to the county and city councils for houseing.Some have been idle for years.or is it all money and to hell with the homeless
I can only imagine the state of these when they’re finished, at 45k a piece I know I wouldn’t want to be living in one. That being said I suppose its better than a park bench if you have no other option/motivation.
Is the Irish government investment arm giving loans to irish developers! With some US cover fund of course, but is that the gist of it? Why can’t they borrow off the banks that we bailed out.
Irish banks have lent too much to Irish developers in general already. The money they have to lend can go to for small business and personal loads and home loans and some for some mortgages.
If you read the report produced by the ISIF you will see that the money is going mostly towards the construction of 3 and 4 bed units, which are the units that are badly needed to get families out shoe box apartments and flats all across the country. This is good news
Well said David. The usual suspects in here bemoaning and belittling any good news with nothing tangible to offer themselves except finger pointing. We need more homes in the right locations. The demand is there.
A link to the report would help! I just hope they’re 3 bed apartments rather than more suburban low rise sprawl into our agriculturally productive countryside.
We have way more 3 bed houses than we need in this country. They are under used is the problem. In order to free them up we need smaller properties as options for singles, couples without kids and property for the elderly.
Vast housing estates close to the major employment,schools etc. are occupied by 1 to 2 people. There should be incentives to get them in more suitable housing within these estates.
My mother lives in a 5 bed house on her own. She doesn’t want to leave the area and her neighbours are all in a similar situation.
I would cautiously welcome such news – but it comes way too late – initiatives like this were badly needed when the ordure first hit the airconditioning.
45k per house paying staff an ave wage of 19k per year is 36k per year on the staff. That leaves 9k left for materials or the build. I’m probably missing something here? The sale of these houses would need to be over 100k each to generate a return of 1.1b. I’m sure it will be more. The cost of the shoeboxes I meant.
have your say