I’ve posted on the advent of micro-publishing and literature in bite-sized portions before, so as a follow-up it seemed timely to observe the launch of the Twiller

You might remember the novel in its earlier form; it had a cover, and many pages, forethought of plot, editors and agents weighing in, and, oh yes, it generally had sentences and punctuation. And, finally, some poor suckers had to take the time out of their busy days to actually read it…

…Who has time for all those niceties? They’re so first half of 2008.

In my case, I’ve for the last two months been using Twitter to write a real-time thriller. Hence: Twiller.

However, while the technology might be new, as I’ve previously observed, the microblogged novel follows in that grand tradition of serialised fiction which was the height of fashion in the Victorian era. The fact that the greatest novelists of the time (such as Dickens, Eliot & Thackeray) chose to publish their newest works of fiction in installment - which was more affordable than purchasing bound hardcover books - democratised the consumption of fiction, sparking growth in the number of people desiring to read, and also in literacy rates.

Yet other forms of Twitlit are striking out in an entirely new model - self contained content in microformats. Copyblogger’s Twitter writing contest and Smithereen’s Can you put the wit in Twitter? respectively challenged participants to tell a short story and come up with witty wordplay in 140 characters.

Will this catch on?

Well, let’s check out the winners:

Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.

Ron Gould

The lady at The Coffee Bean laughed at my joke when I ordered a “Synonym Roll”, and asked her if there was another word to describe it.

RhodesTer

I’m no literary critic, but I suspect longform fiction is unlikely to be killed off any time soon!