Seriality and Storytelling

I chose to read the critical work and creative works on the topic “Seriality and storytelling in social media,” as well as one other creative work called “Lonely Tweets” from the topic “Tweet.” I chose to read the works on this topic because I think it has a clear relationship to my own topic, which is Twitter fiction. The concept of seriality can also be harnessed in Twitter fiction, and my topic also incorporates the role of social media regarding storytelling, though not just with serial stories.

Reading the works featured under this topic has helped me come up with ideas relating to my own project. The critical work Seriality and Storytelling in Social Media has led me to realise that serial text need not be narrative, and makes me wonder what non-narrative forms serial text can take. When I think of fiction, I always think of narratives but have come to realise that is a bit limiting as fiction in general just refers to something not wholly grounded in reality, and need not be a narrative. Hence, my wreading of Twitter fiction need not necessarily take a narrative form.

Seriality may also be “open-ended,” meaning it does not have a clear “beginning, middle and end.” I found this interesting in relation to the idea of fiction since it also challenges my understanding of what constitutes fiction and stories – stories need not have a beginning and end. I found this clearer when I read the Lonely Tweets. Many of these function as micro-stories without endings and are aggregated by the website continuously.

I found the idea of collaborative seriality very intriguing as well. Ruth Page brought up the example of collaborative writing in Wiki pages, which made me think of our class Wiki page. However, the idea of collaboration in telling stories via social media also led me to think of Neil Gaiman’s collaboration with his Twitter followers to write stories. The concept introduced hence made me consider the possibility of incorporating an interactive or collaborative element into my midterm project.

While the creative works given were meant to be used as examples of serial storytelling, I found one of them (Black Box by Jennifer Egan) still useful as an example of Twitter fiction, and the other (Dear David by Adam Ellis) a good example of storytelling via Twitter.

Egan’s work allowed me to analyse the effects of Twitter fiction. I realized Twitter fiction was very easy and fast to read, as each tweet is only a sentence. Interestingly, however, Twitter fiction may force close reading of every sentence, as part of the story and on its own (e.g. “Sunlight on bare skin can be as nourishing as food.”), and user feedback on the story can be captured immediately via likes and retweets.

In examining the Dear David tweets, I saw the value of using multiple media formats (text, sound, pictures, videos) in drawing audiences in – when tweeting about there being a ghost in his apartment, Adam Ellis would post things like Polaroid pictures and Soundcloud recordings to enhance the authenticity of what he was tweeting. I felt that this was very effective as what he tweeted allowed me to sometimes experience the same things he was feeling, including bewilderment and worry.