Young Writers Society

Hey guys!

I was just wondering what everyone thought of the potential for using social media (more along the lines of Twitter or Facebook, not so much Tumblr or Wordpress) as a platform for creative writing. What I mean, I guess, is do you think it's a good medium for things like characterisation or some semblance of plot?

See, I'm trying to do this thing (I'm not going to post a link because I don't want this to read like a shameless plug for followers) that was initially inspired by MayorEmanuel (https://twitter.com/MayorEmanuel) (note: that link contains very strong language) which was someone posing as Rahm Emanuel during his campaign for Mayor of Chicago. The feed contains about 2000 tweets over a period of months, and was eventually published as a book. Anyway, I think it's one of the most hilariously well-written things I've ever read. It has characters (the candidate, the ghost of Mayor Daley, David Axelrod, Carl the Intern, a duck named Quaxelrod and a dog named Hambone) and a plot involving time vortexes and infinite Chicagos with infinite Rahm Emanuels. It's also brilliant satire that works on a number of levels.

So anyway, I thought I'd give it a try. Mine is set in an Australian context and isn't an impersonation of a public figure. Instead it's basically a character I've invented. It's discouraging without many followers, but I think the medium has great potential for creating characters and telling stories. Has anyone else ever tried/thought of this? Does anyone think it doesn't count as a valid form of literature? Any thoughts at all?

Twitter would be a really interesting platform for that sort of thing, especially since the form is so constrained it would really inspire something unique. It'd have to be an entertaining and enjoyable character, though, to gain any following (or a popular character from your own fictional work that gained popularity, if you're fortunate enough for that).

Facebook, though, I don't recommend. Facebook (basically) owns the rights to everything posted on the site so I would avoid putting your creative work up there. Especially if you want to try to get it published someday.

Twitter is perfect to create a new persona. I did it last summer and throughout the school year. I never gave my name away but my friends figured out who I was because I had a lot of them follow me. The majority of the ones I followed were about being in a fraternity or sorority. They're called anon accounts and I gave it up for a lot of reasons, one being that people hit on you and it was a temporary fix for dealing with people. If you have any questions about it, I can help!