Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan will tweet an entire short story and consequently destroy Twitter as we know it.
Apparently, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan began tweeting her 8,500-word short story from The New Yorker Fiction Twitter account (@NYerFiction) last night. She will continue tweeting single lines, to be published every minute from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., through June 2.
As far as I'm concerned, this idea should not only be spurned, but banned. That is, unless you want to kill Twitter. It disregards the entire intention of Twitter and opens the service up for all sorts of abuses and bad ideas.
To begin with, this is not spontaneous. The book is already written. So what's the point, except gimmickry, to put it on Twitter line by line and minute by minute? It's idiotic.
Should I publish my tech essays like this? Should everyone? There is a reason we use links. If I want to tell my Twitter followers to read this column, I'll link to it.
The worst part of this is that it will encourage would-be novelists who cannot get publishers (let alone a Pulitzer) to begin posting crappy stories on Twitter. Besides being a waste of bandwidth, it sets a bad precedent. In my opinion, if it is already written and posted by robot (let's face it, Egan is not going to post this by hand), then it's spam.
You can be certain her Twitter book will be published in a commercial form at some point and this is just a publicity stunt to get people to buy it.
Also, long form is long form and belongs in an appropriate format. It's generally called a book. Nowadays, ebooks readers seem to be good for most long forms. I don't think even the smartphone cuts it when it comes to reading long form.
I've written for various media and it's undeniable that writing for the Web is different than writing for print. Even more, book writing is different than magazine writing, which is different than newspaper writing. It's all different.
On the Web, the paragraphs must be shorter—ideally, just two sentences—because the blinking and bright screen makes it easy for readers to lose their place as they read. With short paragraphs, the reading goes much faster.
Egan claims to have this awareness and intends to write the Twitter novel so it actually works on Twitter. I hope to heaven that it does not work at all. The bosses at Twitter should, too.
If Egan wins a bunch of awards for this exercise, it will ruin Twitter as wannabees jump on board.
You can Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter @therealdvorak.
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