Brainstorming a modern Novel of Letters
July 30, 2008 at 5:29 pm (Get Promoted, Get Published, Get it Written) (fiction, howto, novel of letters, publishing, social media, writing)
An idea keeps nudging its way into the front of my brain: a modern epistolary novel.
You know the kind of thing I mean, don’t you? An old-fashioned story with multiple narrators, often told in both first and third person POV, that took the form of a series of letters, journal entries, newspaper articles, etc.
Famous 18th century examples include Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos, and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Clarissa, but the genre fell out of favour in the 19th century. Bram Stoker used this form in Dracula, one of my favourite novels of all time, and it still reads well today.
I keep thinking how exciting it would be to write Sudbucket this way, with various characters speaking through their blogs, commenting on others, and posting back and forth on Plurk and Twitter and elswhere. In the most perfect world possible, I might even get to hook the story into fictional articles on a newspaper website. I’d love to build full online identities for a group of characters, and then pit them against whatever the plot throws at them in real time.
I’ve always intended Sudbucket to be a promotion vehicle for my first published novel (which I hope will be fugue). A freebie for my readers. What I’m really talking about, of course, is not just writing the story this way – but writing and publishing it simultaneously. Because that’s the nature of social media. And the wonderful thing about this would be that readers could interact with the characters as the story unfolded! For me, that’s a big Wow!
Have you heard of anyone else doing this recently? I’m sure someone must have done it, somewhere. I’ve heard of authors having their characters use social media to promote a novel, but I can’t find any examples of an entire story told this way. Have you heard of anyone doing it?
And what do you think of the idea?
Anita said,
July 30, 2008 at 6:48 pm
That sounds really complicated. But intriguing. I think I could follow the blogs in my Google Reader, I don’t know if I could follow the Plurks or Twits. Maybe a subscriber email for those?
If someone lands on one site (blog) how does he get the the whole story? Oh, you could have them all as guest bloggers or as contributors on one blog (this would depend on how they are related – would they all be on one blog in real life?
I also sometimes wonder how wide the audience really is on say plurk. It’s a lot of writers and IT/computer people. I think my RL friends don’t even get the blog thing. Again, maybe serial emails to supplement.
I am not sure of the genre, but maybe you can tap into some fantasy websites (like robert jordan fan sites)
sounds cool! maybe you can do a short short story first? good luck!
David Bridger said,
July 30, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Thanks for your thoughts, Anita.
Hm, how to keep readers up-to-date with all the different posts? I’m thinking some kind of fansite (not officially associated with any of the characters) where people could post a running list of links.
And, yes, I see various characters posting on each other’s blogs. Not all in one place, but with sufficient cross-over to draw readers from one blog to the next.
I think you’re right about the Plurk population. At the moment, I guess most of us are early adopters from the worlds of words and technology.
I’m glad you like the idea!
Dewi Morgan said,
July 30, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Could work. I’d say that giving it away free like this will sell a hundred times more of the printed version than not. Your enemy is not piracy or copying or anything like that: it’s obscurity.
Bloggers and webcartoonists make money by releasing their art to the public first, *then* selling it.
Your idea hooks into the zeitgeist, certainly, but it has a downside: it could be hard to navigate. If you want it accessible too, you need to include some kind of index for it all. You might feel this would spoil the whole point of it, and that it’s meant to be nonlinear: but I’d disagree. If you want to become known, make your work accessible.
Other than that, and the obvious problems with the time it will take, the planning it will need, and so on, I see no downside.
It sounds like the kind of thing that BoingBoing and similar places would really love the idea of: if you include a crossover to real-life too for people to get involved (have a photo blog of places mentioned in the story that anyone can contribute pictures to) that would be cool.
If you include messages written in the real world, such as a personal ads in Private Eye, stuff like that, it would increase the appeal, because people could collect the *tangible* parts of the story.
There are other ways that you could have them affect the real world: graffiti and carvings in trees would be bad (aim to damage nothing by your tale, I’d say), but things like starting a cairn by a public walk, and writing how the characters have agreed to place a rock there every time they go past, will mean that your readers can walk along that very same path, and do the same… and then they will take pics, and blog about it, and pingpingping goes the viral marketometer.
Read up on geocacheing for ideas.
David Bridger said,
July 30, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Wow! You have some great ideas here, Dewi!
I’m definitely with you on the “give it away and keep it accessible” thing. That’s at the core of my concept.
Yes, I think an index of some sort would be essential. That’s kind of what I was talking about with Anita, above. A fansite where readers can keep a list of postings updated.
I love your idea of crossing over into the 3D world. Excellent! My mental horizons stretched wide open when I read your post.
I’m off to google geocaching!
Thanks, mate!
Karen Wester Newton said,
July 31, 2008 at 2:41 am
I dunno, Dave. It sounds kind of complicated. Of course, that’s just me. I don’t even like flashbacks in novels if I can avoid them.
I do think if you’re going to be non-linear, it’s better to fit the current hi-tech format, like the above commenter mentions. The web works well in chunks. Just look at the success of Twittter (and I don’t get that one either).
Shelley Heath said,
July 31, 2008 at 3:14 am
This sounds like an interesting idea and a complex idea… sort of like a chalk chase/orienteering through the social media… following clues to the next instalment
Joan Kremer said,
July 31, 2008 at 3:29 am
David,
You make my head spin with possibilities! I think your idea is doable, especially with the index/fansite addition and Dewi’s great elaborations. I say, Go for it!! If it hasn’t been done yet, it certain will, because whatever enters the human consciousness ends up showing up in the world!
Joan
David Bridger said,
July 31, 2008 at 7:44 am
Hi, Karen. It will be a complicated process to make, but done right I hope it won’t be complicated to read. That’s the challenge!
We’re on the same wavelength, Shelley!
Thanks for your encouragement, Joan. My head is spinning too!
Ana said,
July 31, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Love the idea, but you’ll have your work cut out for you.
elizabethfoote said,
July 31, 2008 at 5:20 pm
If you haven’t read “Dionaea House,” a horror story written entirely through websites, e-mails, IM conversations, and blogs, then you should. It might give you some ideas.
http://www.dionaea-house.com/
It’s really well done. The author is now apparently in talks with Hollywood discussing movie potentials…
Beth
David Bridger said,
July 31, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I’m very excited about it, Ana!
David Bridger said,
July 31, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Wow! Thanks, Elizabeth. This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping someone would know about. I’ll go read Dionaea House right away.
Arlene said,
July 31, 2008 at 6:50 pm
actually it sort of reminds me of some of the books from the 80’s where fantasy writers would collaborate on a shared world and their works would interlink. Thieves World and Aces High are two examples off the top of my head. But your idea makes it more immediate and interactive, almost the literary equivalent of a MMORPG.
David Bridger said,
July 31, 2008 at 6:55 pm
That’s a vision, all right!
Alex Fayle said,
August 1, 2008 at 6:44 am
David
The mind reels at the work involved, but I love the idea – perhaps you could do it as well as a variation of the Letter Game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_game) and open it up to one (or more) other writers. It might increase the spontanaeity of the piece (and make less work for you).
Cheers,
Alex
David Bridger said,
August 1, 2008 at 8:40 am
Good morning, Alex. I know! Reeling already!
Two things will help enormously. First one is that my friend Jane Chin has come onboard and we’re going to work together on this. I doubt either of us will have any less work to do individually, but her involvement increases the scope of this project and I’m very excited about it. And the other thing is that I think most of the work can be done in the planning stage, so that when the project goes live we’ll have lots of material prepared and waiting to be used.
Thanks for the Letter Game idea! I’ll add that to my growing list of resource links.
Microblogging a novel! « How To Get Your Novel Published said,
August 18, 2008 at 10:51 am
[...] am (Communities, Get it Written) (howto, microblogging, novel, plurk, twitter, writing) In my post Brainstorming a modern Novel of Letters I asked I’ve heard of authors having their characters use social media to promote a novel, but I [...]