The Web-Novel

Now here's an idea I just had ... It's recently dawned upon me that the majority of my Facebook usage is about encouraging communication and discussion, whether that be through witty little comments or deliberately controversial status updates. I suppose this isn't what dawned on me so much as it was the fact that I seem to have achieved this purpose, a quick purview of my wall indicates a lot of people (mostly regulars, I suppose) comment and we always get a nice lil' discussion going.

Like I lamented in my last post, Twitter is my escape away from "accountability" (by which I mean to my friends, and not to the larger social/political accountability and responsibility that I hold. So if you're someone in the future trying to comb through my blog looking for "incriminating" statements, kindly gloss the fuck over this.), but Facebook is definitely my main "broadcast" medium. I wish more people would use Facebook like that, as a means to foster communication and learn about people, rather than a one-way broadcast out, or a banal wall-to-wall service or even worse, a medium for just photos. Facebook takes all those things and creates something much grander.

As such I was just noodling in my mind about different ways about interacting with these people, most of whom are good friends of mine. And as always, it comes back to the notion of writing. I think the internet is one way in which actual serialised writing could work. But just writing it plainly and uploading it onto Facebook = not much of a guarantee for it to be a success, I mean the last thing I'd want is to write something, post it up and not get any feedback whatsoever.

Here's where my thoughts are at: Suppose that I have a germ of an idea of a story. I write up a short passage (a length I am not sure about) then upload that. People read it and respond (should I "tag" people I think would be interested ... maybe different people each week? Or would I just the regulars? I'm sure some people would not appreciate being tagged with my clutter). I then scour the comments and from that someone get influence in the direction I take the next segment.

Obviously my writing style would develop as the feedback built. So it's a way to get very immediate feedback. But I also see it as a way that I could communicate some of my ideas/philosophies, embodied in characters and situations, and generate a discussion and perhaps incorporate aspects of that discussion into each section.

(And how would I have any indication of readership? Perhaps I could ask that people, once read, would like the segment, so I know how many people have read it, who has read it and perhaps that could influence how the story develops.)

It would also discipline me to be writing regularly and to nurture communication and listen to feedback. As for regularity ... I have no idea how regular these things would be. Obviously the more regular the shorter the length of the piece. But if I leave it longer then it will be expected the segments will contain a good length. And yet I want to keep it short enough to allow people to read without suffering a tl;dr complex.

But there's also the battle between yielding to my readers' wants and my own story. I'd have to setup from the onset what the limits of audience feedback would be. Would it become a choose your own adventure style ... I offer a couple of alternatives at the end of the segment, and based on the vote, take the most popular and run with it? Or do I let people decide maybe on lines of dialogue/exposition that I have to include in the next segment?? Or is it just a standard style of writing without contrived gimmicks, and I just look at what the general feel seems to be and then write the next section? Should the novel just be a totally generative story, or do I write with an actual basic plot in mind and let the audience help guide the path but not the destination??

That's the most important part of this and I'm really at a stump to how I can effectively cultivate the zeitgeist of my peeps. If you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear what you think.