Blogging as Performace Art

There's a great article on newlywed Dustin M's Blog Fiction site about how blog fiction is a performance art--and we're not just saying that because he mentions GGR or gives the Giant Girl Creative Team credit for preplanning plots based on reader feedback. We do make some changes behind the scenes when readers lead us one way or another, but in this case Melly would have come around even if an attentive reader hadn't been bashed her over the head by a clue-bat--which we totally enjoyed, by the way.

But posting day-by-day in a real time format for a "live audience" does feel a bit like acting in a live theatrical production. If Melly flubs her lines, or if a post doesn't go up in time, or if a commenter comes too close to a secret plotline, there can be a whole lot of ad-libbing and shuffling of scenes in the background in order to smooth things over.

And we've had similar problems to the one Dustin describes about User Pool, where an entire plot was inadvertently spoiled by an enthusiastic reader who happened to draw just the right parallel to just the right movie. Ours was to a lesser degree, and Melly was able to dance around a bit to make up for it, but that's the danger of writing live and without a net!

The Wedding of Wesley Crusher

One of our favorite fictional blogs is Captain Picard's Journal, which in our current (still work-in-progress) hierarchy would be a Derivative Blog--in this case deriving from the popular characters and situations of the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe of television episodes, movies, and books.  This was an inspired choice for a blog because the show is so universally well known, the story world is so detailed and developed, and becaues the character is already known for the "Captain's Log" narratives that drove each episode.  In fact, if you're familiar at all with the show at all it's impossible to read CPJ without hearing the actors' voices in your head. And although it is billed as Picard's blog, there are plenty of "guest posts" from other characters as well.

There are a couple ways to go with a Derivative Blog. One is to play it straight as a tribute to the source material, and another is to parody the source material.  Either way, the reader gets more out of the blog if they are already familiar with the show/movie/book on which it is based.  CPJ goes for a bit of both approaches but parody and humor predominate. By painting the characters in broad generalizations and letting us get into their heads, we discover pettiness, ulterior motives, hypocrisy, and unprofessionalism that Gene Roddenberry would never have put up with.  In other words, these people are just like the ones in our own lives!

CPJ plots tend toward the short and simple, which makes the story easy to read and follow, but there are also longer story and character arcs--like the one involving Wesley Crusher's engagement and pending marriage to... um... an Amazon warrior from Planet Wondawowman.  Wes's finacee, Karena, is the daughter of the Amazon queen, who looks suspiciously like Lynda Carter did in the 1970s and who is appropriately named Diana.

In real life, actor Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley, is in his 30s by now and already married with children, but CPJ takes place during Next Generation's historic prime, when Wes was still a promising young cadet that everybody loved to hate--or now a promising young Ensign that everybody loves to hate, having only just graduated from Starfleet Academy.  And since we're already outside the show's established canon, it makes sense to throw Jadzia Dax and Seven of Nine under Picard's command, from the Deep Space Nine and Voyager incarnations of the series, respectively.  In the alternate universe of CPJ (which also has its own alternate universe of the Star Trek alternate "mirror-mirror" universe), anything can happen--which is why we're so looking forward to Wesley's and Karena's wedding.

Which, by the way, readers have been invited to.  We urge you to attend.

Upcoming Events

The current "season" of GGR will be ending on August 22nd--just two weeks away! This upcoming week, starting tomorrow, will be especially huge (no pun intended). Around Giant Girl HQ we've been calling it Nightmare Week! On Tuesday night, Melly will be blogging around the clock with short posts every hour. You don't have to stay up with her, but it'll be cool to check out on Wednesday morning. Then on Friday will be a post that will change Melly's life forever.

Updated Character Guides and Spoilers

We've updated the character sheets to reflect further story developments and added a new entry for Miss Freckles.

The entries for Dream Boy and Miss Freckles now have dated spoiler alerts which we expect to use more and more as time goes by. The entire Miss Freckles entry is a spoiler-zone until readers encounter the July 3rd entry, "Out of the Shadows", and half of Dream Boy's entry is off-limits to readers who haven't gotten to the July 31st entry, "Messages".

No entries yet for Mr. Peterson, Mayor Peterson, or Mrs. Lee.

Character Guide: Miss Freckles

Spoiler Alert: Don't click on the spoiler button below until you've read the July 3rd entry, "Out of the Shadows"

Click here for spoilers!

Miss Freckles is a girl, a few years older than Melly, who appears in Melly's dreams as freckle-faced, orange-haired, and eighteen feet tall. Despite having height in common with Melly, Miss Freckles antagonizes her and calls her a freak, stating that Melly has no right to associate with normal-sized people.

Miss Freckles also appears in a deeply-repressed memory from Melly's childhood, leading Melly to speculate that perhaps she is a real person, even an older sister--except that Mr. and Mrs. Mills never mentioned having any other children.

A Quick Note on Promotions...

Someday, when we figure out just how to promote a blog-novel, we'll write an article here about it. We'll include a section about finding online communities who discuss topics that are prominently featured in your story.

And there will be an important caveat to that particular piece of advice...

Make sure they're focused on the same aspect of that topic as you are. Rule 34 of the Internet applies to everything.

Thanks to an attentive reader for pointing this out!

Blog Fiction Typology

After much discussion, here is our current proposal for a blog fiction typology:

• Print Fiction: The universe of print-based fictional works published as books, newspapers, or periodicals.


• Faux Blogs: Print-based fictional works that mimic the format and presentation of a web-based personal journal or diary.

• Web Fiction: The universe of web-based fictional works published as HTML, text files, PDFs, multimedia files, and/or RSS feeds.


• E-books: Substantially-sized web-based works of fiction that are presented as a complete work in itself. E-books may be edited compilations of serialized fiction or may themselves be part of a series of similar works.


• Serialized Fiction: Web-based works of fiction published in installments. Serialized fiction may use blogging software as a publishing platform but with a narrative format other than a personal journal or diary. Material in this category may be adapted from or intended for an offline print format.


• Real Blog With Fictional Elements: Web-based works that purport to be the factual personal diaries or journals of flesh-and-blood authors but are embellished with clearly-identified fictional elements or elements that are obviously fictional to a casual reader.


• Fraud Blogs: Web-based works that purport to be the factual personal diaries or journals of flesh-and-blood authors but are entirely fabricated or predominantly embellished with fictional elements that are presented as real. Warning: when the fictional nature of these blogs is revealed, readers may be royally pissed off!


• Blog Fiction: Web-based works that use a blogging platform to present the personal journal or diary of one or more in-story characters and are either presented as fiction or would be obviously fictional to a casual reader.


• Blogvertisements: Fictional blogs that primarily advertise a product rather than tell a story.


• Contained Story: Fictional blogs that stand alone, containing all the information required for a reader to understand the story.


• Blog-Novels: Traditionally-structured stories with a clearly-intended beginning, a clearly-intended middle, and (if the story is not still being written or on a clearly-intended hiatus) a clearly-intended ending. Structure is what distinguishes a blog-novel from unstructured character blogs and blogs of genuinely unstructured life.


• Character Blogs: Character-driven works in the voice of a fictional character engaged in fictional events, but without a traditionally structured plot.


• Partial or Dependent Story: Fictional blogs for which required plot points are given in another medium, or that require a reader to be familiar with the blogging character from another source.


• RPBs: (a.k.a. Role-Playing Blogs) Works in which individual authors have taken on individual character roles which they maintain while blogging about each other's characters.


• Derivative Blogs: Works purporting to be the personal online journal or diary of an existing fictional character from another medium.


• Fake Blogs: Works purporting to be the personal online journal or diary of a contemporary or historical figure where it is clearly stated that the blog is fake or that fact would be obvious to a casual reader.