A major benefit of the blog format for storytelling is that readers can provide instant feedback to a story in progress. Even better, readers can talk directly to the characters and maybe even have them reply! This was one of the features that originally excited us so much about blog-novels and their potential to go beyond what traditional paper novels can do.
Our advice to blog-novelists is, simply, to turn on the commenting feature for their posts, police the comments to weed out the inappropriate ones, and post replies to encourage the rest. You may want to close comments on an occasional episode that creates a controversy, but turning off comments on all posts would defeat the two-way interaction that is the main purpose in having a blog in the first place.
You may not get many comments in the first month of your blog-novel, until you start building a readership, but don't let that discourage you. Most readers will not ever leave comments, no matter how much they're enjoying your work. When you do start to get comments, respond to them with comments of your own--in character or, if you're more comfortable that way, as the author. A small trickle of comments will encourage more and more.
In addition to providing a means for reader feedback, comments will help you understand what your readers like and dislike, or where they are confused and need further explanations and details.
In Week #2 of "Giant Girl Rampages," we dealt with Melly's feelings of loss for her family--showing her anger by having her lash out at Jay Appleton. Some readers felt that Melly's behavior was uncalled for and that she should immediately apologize to Jay. Others identified with Melly and, viewing Jay through her perspective, decided he was a jerk and not worth associating with. As authors, we were able to take both of these reactions into account in fine-tuning and steering the Melly-Jay relationship over the ensuing weeks. We were also able to have Melly herself provide interaction through comments that helped readers understand her moods and motives. By doing this, the comments became an important part of the story.
We also received some abusive comments from a reader who seemed oddly obsessed with Melly's feet. Fortunately, other readers rallied around Melly and let the foot guy know that his comments were inappropriate and unwanted. We were able to delete the comments in question and, deprived of a voice, the foot guy went away.
If you're very lucky, your readership will become a community in itself and comments will riff off each other as much as off of your original posts. This hasn't happened to us, and probably never will, but we've seen it on other more popular sites. And even on our site, the commentary enhances the story.
Showing posts with label Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tips. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Beginnings
Authors have agonized over beginnings since, probably, the beginning of storytelling itself. The start of a traditionally structured story must serve many purposes all at once: it introduces one or more characters, sets them in a certain place and time, establishes any number of reader expectations about style and substance, and starts a chain of action that will hopefully carry through until the final chapter--and all of it has to grab the reader before he or she abandons the work in favor of something else.
Blog-novelists who structure their stories with deliberate beginnings, middles, and endings have the additional challenge of having to do all of this in a single take, because substantial revision to a blog-novel in progress is difficult or impossible. In this way, blog-novels cross the written word with live storytelling.
We recommend that blog-novelists take the time to plan and plot their blog-novels before posting a first entry that will be, essentially, written in stone. Looking back now on the opening week of our blog-novel, "Giant Girl Rampages," it feels like we were hopelessly ill-prepared for putting the first episodes on the web, even though we pre-wrote the first five days and had rough plots ready for the next three months.
Blog-novelists coming from the world of books, especially, need to prepare for a little disappointment when looking back on earlier parts of the story. As with all first drafts, your main character's voice will evolve as she takes on a life of her own and the plot will develop layers and meanders you never expected. You will feel the urge to go back and revise--and you won't be able to. With the blog-novel, any substantial amount of retroactive editing will be impossible, but what you get instead is the constant prod to make forward progress.
The beginning of a blog-novel should be a clearly intentional beginning that works toward a clearly-intended ending, or else what you're writing isn't a blog-novel, but instead something called a character blog--which is perfectly fine if that's what you want to do. Your open-ended character blog will also require some pre-planning though, because you'll need to know something about your character and story world before you start.
In Week #1 of "Giant Girl Rampages," readers meet Melly Mills and learn about her unusual size, her background, and her personality. We describe an important event that has turned Melly's world upside-down, with aftershocks and unforseen consequences that will continue to unfold for months to come. We introduce Dr. Crisp and other key people in Melly's life, reveal her aspiration to meet and fall in love with a boy who is even taller than she is, show her reading habits, and witness her introduction to a sport that will play an important part in the story. That structured beginning gave us a platform on which to build the rest of our story.
If we continue GGR long enough, and if we don't end up abandoning it in the middle, it will wrap up in a nice, neat, clearly intentional ending. It may not be exactly the ending we had in mind when we started the project, because stories tend to take on a life of their own, but for a blog-novel, just as with a paper novel, it's important to have an ending in mind from the very beginning.
Blog-novelists who structure their stories with deliberate beginnings, middles, and endings have the additional challenge of having to do all of this in a single take, because substantial revision to a blog-novel in progress is difficult or impossible. In this way, blog-novels cross the written word with live storytelling.
We recommend that blog-novelists take the time to plan and plot their blog-novels before posting a first entry that will be, essentially, written in stone. Looking back now on the opening week of our blog-novel, "Giant Girl Rampages," it feels like we were hopelessly ill-prepared for putting the first episodes on the web, even though we pre-wrote the first five days and had rough plots ready for the next three months.
Blog-novelists coming from the world of books, especially, need to prepare for a little disappointment when looking back on earlier parts of the story. As with all first drafts, your main character's voice will evolve as she takes on a life of her own and the plot will develop layers and meanders you never expected. You will feel the urge to go back and revise--and you won't be able to. With the blog-novel, any substantial amount of retroactive editing will be impossible, but what you get instead is the constant prod to make forward progress.
The beginning of a blog-novel should be a clearly intentional beginning that works toward a clearly-intended ending, or else what you're writing isn't a blog-novel, but instead something called a character blog--which is perfectly fine if that's what you want to do. Your open-ended character blog will also require some pre-planning though, because you'll need to know something about your character and story world before you start.
In Week #1 of "Giant Girl Rampages," readers meet Melly Mills and learn about her unusual size, her background, and her personality. We describe an important event that has turned Melly's world upside-down, with aftershocks and unforseen consequences that will continue to unfold for months to come. We introduce Dr. Crisp and other key people in Melly's life, reveal her aspiration to meet and fall in love with a boy who is even taller than she is, show her reading habits, and witness her introduction to a sport that will play an important part in the story. That structured beginning gave us a platform on which to build the rest of our story.
If we continue GGR long enough, and if we don't end up abandoning it in the middle, it will wrap up in a nice, neat, clearly intentional ending. It may not be exactly the ending we had in mind when we started the project, because stories tend to take on a life of their own, but for a blog-novel, just as with a paper novel, it's important to have an ending in mind from the very beginning.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Blog-Novel Resources
Here are some sites and resources to help blog-novelists along the way. Some relate to blog-fiction or serialized online fiction generally but may also be helpful.
Meta Blogs
Blog Fiction by DustinM
Novelr
Making Melly Mills
Blog Communities
Web Writers on LiveJournal
Forums
Blog Fiction Forum
NovLounge
Pages Unbound Forum
EpiGuide online entertainment
Story Directories
List of Blog Fiction Sites
Flogalicious: A Fictional Blog Directory
Pages Unbound
Web Fiction Guide
Awards
Blooker Prize (for blogs turned into books)
References
Friedrich, Betsy. Fictional Blogs: How Digital Narratives are Changing the Way We
Read and Write. Coe College, 14 February 2007 (PDF)
Thomas, Angela. Fictional Blogging and the Narrative Identities of Adolescent Girls. University of Sydney, 26 March 2005. (Word Document)
Wright, Tim. Blog Fiction. trAce Online Writing Centre, 16 January 2004.
Blog Fiction Wikipedia Entry
Meta Blogs
Blog Communities
Forums
Story Directories
Awards
References
Read and Write. Coe College, 14 February 2007 (PDF)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Using Meta Information
When readers start a book, they flip open to the first page and the story begins. But with a blog-novel, readers may arrive in the middle of a story already in progress. They may leave for a while and miss important plot developments. Or they may need a quick refresher on a character who hasn't been seen for a week or two.
Blog-novels require meta information--supplemental text that's about the story but isn't part of the story. This might include character guides, plot synopses, frequently asked questions, posting schedules, and information about the author(s). Meta information can appear in the blog's sidebar, in the header, in posts, or in a separate website.
Three weeks into "Giant Girl Rampages," we realized that our meta information would no longer fit neatly into the sidebar. Luckily, we discovered that the blog format also makes for an excellent resource site with virtually unlimited room for expansion.
On our behind-the-scenes blog, "Making Melly Mills," every main character has an entry that can be updated as we learn more about them. And each entry has its own URL, so we can link to them from the story site.
Also, because blog-novels are still so rare, we've included frequently asked questions about what we're doing, why, and how--as well as tips like the one you're reading now, for blog-novelists who want to join in the fun. These resources are available for the reader who wants more background information without bothering some other reader who just wants to get on with the story.
Blog-novels require meta information--supplemental text that's about the story but isn't part of the story. This might include character guides, plot synopses, frequently asked questions, posting schedules, and information about the author(s). Meta information can appear in the blog's sidebar, in the header, in posts, or in a separate website.
Three weeks into "Giant Girl Rampages," we realized that our meta information would no longer fit neatly into the sidebar. Luckily, we discovered that the blog format also makes for an excellent resource site with virtually unlimited room for expansion.
On our behind-the-scenes blog, "Making Melly Mills," every main character has an entry that can be updated as we learn more about them. And each entry has its own URL, so we can link to them from the story site.
Also, because blog-novels are still so rare, we've included frequently asked questions about what we're doing, why, and how--as well as tips like the one you're reading now, for blog-novelists who want to join in the fun. These resources are available for the reader who wants more background information without bothering some other reader who just wants to get on with the story.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Blog-Novel Writing Style
With all stories written in the first person (as told by the character herself) it's important to choose an appropriate and distinctive voice and stick with it.
Our advice to other blog-novelists is to think about your character's voice before you even start writing your first post. Make sure the style you want to use matches the background of the character you have. Once you're into the story, it will be difficult or impossible to go back and make style changes from the beginning.
As you write, keep in mind that blogging is an immediate activity for your character--the events of the story have just happened, or are still happening, and the emotions of the moment should work their way into the tone. Avoid the narrative distance often seen in books, where characters may be recalling events that happened months or years before the telling.
Finally, remember that your character's word choices and writing style tell readers a lot about who they are and where they're coming from. Figure out how the character's personality and background are different from yours, as the author, and be sure to reflect that difference in your writing style. If more than one character is writing the blog, each should have a distinctive voice.
For "Giant Girl Rampages" we wanted Melly Mills to be articulate and literate enough to tell her own story, so we worked a love of books into her background. She's also been isolated on a farm for her whole life, only recently gaining access to the Internet, so she's not going to be using any texting slang, emoticons, or pop-culture references. She hasn't read a lot of blogs, so Melly mostly writes the way she talks, in an informal tone with colloquialisms she picked up from her parents.
Melly uses shorthand words like cuz and 'tho because we wanted to remind the reader that this is a blog, rough and unfinished, and not a polished and edited novel. We adopted the triple-exclamation-point so that Melly can express strong emotions--and because we imagine her voice, powered by giant-sized lungs, to be megaphone-loud. We even wrote that down as a rule in our notes: Always three exclamation points for Melly, never two or four!!!
If we've done our job, a reader will believe that Melly's blog is actually being written by Melly and her words couldn't have been written by anybody else.
Our advice to other blog-novelists is to think about your character's voice before you even start writing your first post. Make sure the style you want to use matches the background of the character you have. Once you're into the story, it will be difficult or impossible to go back and make style changes from the beginning.
As you write, keep in mind that blogging is an immediate activity for your character--the events of the story have just happened, or are still happening, and the emotions of the moment should work their way into the tone. Avoid the narrative distance often seen in books, where characters may be recalling events that happened months or years before the telling.
Finally, remember that your character's word choices and writing style tell readers a lot about who they are and where they're coming from. Figure out how the character's personality and background are different from yours, as the author, and be sure to reflect that difference in your writing style. If more than one character is writing the blog, each should have a distinctive voice.
For "Giant Girl Rampages" we wanted Melly Mills to be articulate and literate enough to tell her own story, so we worked a love of books into her background. She's also been isolated on a farm for her whole life, only recently gaining access to the Internet, so she's not going to be using any texting slang, emoticons, or pop-culture references. She hasn't read a lot of blogs, so Melly mostly writes the way she talks, in an informal tone with colloquialisms she picked up from her parents.
Melly uses shorthand words like cuz and 'tho because we wanted to remind the reader that this is a blog, rough and unfinished, and not a polished and edited novel. We adopted the triple-exclamation-point so that Melly can express strong emotions--and because we imagine her voice, powered by giant-sized lungs, to be megaphone-loud. We even wrote that down as a rule in our notes: Always three exclamation points for Melly, never two or four!!!
If we've done our job, a reader will believe that Melly's blog is actually being written by Melly and her words couldn't have been written by anybody else.
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