Narrative and Weblogs: the Blognovel

Diego writes "A few days ago I started Plan B -- a blognovel as a way of exploring the narrative constraints created by a weblog, and whether it is at all possible to use it as an artistic medium to produce interesting work. It also presents some interesting challenges on the UI side: what kind of navigation to use besides the basic calendar navigation of the blog? How could it be made obvious that it's not intended to replace print or even ebooks? I thought the slashdot community would have a lot useful things to say about all of these issues. I've also put together a short intro page and a FAQ that I think will be useful to start the conversation: What is Plan B? and the Plan B FAQ."

Let me save you some effort

as a way of exploring... whether it is at all possible to use [a weblog] as an artistic medium to produce interesting work.

No.

Very similar concept to Memento

Memento [imdb.com] used a storytelling style very similar to what you are describing. In fact, it's easy to see that story being done in a blog style.

Purpose of a novel

I've tried my hand at a novel before, as my half-shelf of writing books will attest. It seems to me that the whole reason for a novel, or fiction generally, is to communicate an emotional state to the reader. Even SF boils down to this - otherwise, why have characters, why not just write speculative monographs about technology? It's about exploring the human condition and sharing the results.

So what I'd like to understand is how you think this medium and method will enhance that purpose. Why should access to unfinished work, or continuous feedback from reader of that work, help an author convey what must initally be an internal state or vision?

It's an interesting topic more generally, since by and large (I except computer games) computers haven't really added any new media at all. And while Doom may have scared the shit out me at times, it's clear that the richness of the experience was far behind Shakespeare, or even Lovecraft.

Thanks for starting what could potentially be an interesting discussion.

Blogging as an art form

As a navigation system, I think the slashdot-style topics would make a great addition. This way you can progressively follow the entire log, or you can pick a topic that the author has made, and follow a sequence of topical notes and opinions.

I don't get it.

Why are people facinated with blogs? They simply offer a more limited subset of the creativity allowed by vanilla html, in exchange for added ease of use and "structure". Why not just use web pages, or better yet flash, or another multimedia form to create unique arts?

Read slashdot at -1

and you'll see all sorts of interesting stories. Novels, no, but not short either!

The death of the original thought

This isn't meant to be a flame.

It seems to me that this is similar to other ideas, both that the author recognizes and some that he may not. Dickens, for instance, first published much of his canon in a serial form. Great Expectations, e.g., was first published in pieces (which you can notice if you read it). This aspect of the "new" art form seems to me to be fairly old.

The one "new" aspect may be the "unedited" nature of the medium. The web allows publishing to be cheap enough that few enough people's financial futures are at stake to require that the produced content be of any conceivable literary merit or commercial quality. On the other hand, the radio show of HHGTTG seemed to be done in a manner that may not have had that much time to go back over it. So that's close.

All in all, it's an interesting idea that may bring together old art forms with the new medium, but I wouldn't say it's revolutionary or necessarily that experimental, in the sense of wondering "whether it is at all possible to use it as an artistic medium to produce interesting work." Of course it is. You may be shooting yourself in the foot by not using an editor, though.

Doesn't sound too well thought out.

I notice this in your FAQ:

entries are "improvisational," by which I mean that you usually sit down, write it, and post it. There isn't a lot of preparation, hours of editing or things like that. You write it, you post it.

"Preparation" and "hours of editing" are the difference between good writing and bad. Don't be fooled by the medium-- even a good blog entry has lots of thought, preparation, and editing behind it.

Unless you've already sat down and thought about storylines, character development, plotting, and pacing, your story is likely to end up an unreadable, uninteresting mess. Real authors of novels don't just sit down and blurt out whatever comes into their head at any given moment. Don't assume that the immediacy of the blog format will substitute for good preparation and planning.

Fictional blog community

I had the idea a while back of creating a whole fictional community of blogs through which to tell a story. Basically, I would set up a network of sites, one for each character, and they would relate the events of the story from their own points of view. Characters that knew one another would have links to each other's sites, thus informing the reader of the connections. This approach might lead to something more like War of the Worlds and other fictional journalism, as opposed to a fictional diary, as in the proposed work.

when did the blog...

Ok, so I've been surfing since Mosaic 1.0 in 1994, and ftp'ing pr0n for zurich.ai.mit.edu since 1990, and the first time I heard of a 'blog' was a few months ago. The odd thing is, this discussion of blogs came out of the news websites and not the nerd websites.

when the hell did blogs become so famous? and are they just the modern equivalent of .plan? i get the impression they are the creation of low-tech people in the high-tech world. not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but it took me by surprise that it became such a phenomenonemon.

?

the end of writing?

While I applaud any and all attempts to update the antiquated form of the novel for the modern era, I think it may be a classic case of "too little, too late." When you use the Internet as a medium, you are by necessity targetting the Internet demographic, which can be described as middle class Americans and Western Europeans in the 12-28 age bracket. That means the oldest people in your target audience will have been born when disco was in full swing.

These people came of age in the early 80's. They grew up with cartoons, MTV, hair bands and cocaine. They've been disillusioned, become disillusioned with their disillusionment, and are jaded and cynical as a result. With middle age creeping up on them, they have neither the time nor the desire to sit down and read, whether in a library or on a computer screen.

But is this so terrible? I'd propose that, no, it isn't. Look at what has gone before: we've lost great art forms such as traditional oral storytelling, the inscription of heiroglyphics into stone tablets, papyrus scrolls. The printing press upset the wonderful tradition of books copied and illuminated (illustrated) by monks. Yes, it is sad when traditional and familiar art forms fade away, but it also signifies progress.

We're reaching a point where the sheer amount of information available exceeds the expressive power of the book. Flash, DVD, and video games are the media of the future. This attempt to adapt what is essentially a dying and doomed art form to modern tastes is touching, but ultimately doomed to failure. And while we should (and probably will) all look back fondly on the Book Era, we should not shy from our destiny in the Information Age.

We are on the verge of accomplishing great things for Mankind. This is a time like no other previous, and with all probability like none to come. Let us not be distracted by nostalgia and wistful dreams.

Storylines

In most stories, there are various tales to follow. For instance, one might detail your relationship with your wife at home, another may deal with your extended family, another focuses on the daily odyssey you call a commute, while another paints a sinister picture of the evil man in the next cubicle over who plays the same two Creed songs through his computer speakers all day long.

You could organize your blog according to topic, and then add entries under each heading:

The Angel of My Life

• The best sex ever
• My life changed forever when I met her

Satin? You Want the Next Cubicle Over

• I used to like Creed

My Daily Odyssey

• Turn signals are not a sign of weakness
• Where's the fire?
• The philosophy of "Stop and Go"

People I Can't Seem to Get Rid of...

• My mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies
• Aunt Helen, the nitpicker
• My cousin the wench
• My cousin the wench, Part II

The Person No One Knows

• Covert excursions to the park
• My day as a troll

Would it be "interesting?" I guess that's up to you.

Wiki as Blog

I think a much better (and ready-made) UI for an experiment like this would be a Wiki; if you really want the calendar style navigation you've got the 'RecentChanges' page, but otherwise navigation is much more organic, and from an authoring standpoint it's much more stream of conciousness; creating a new page is as simple as creating a link to it.

I began using a Wiki for my own site a few weeks ago and I like it a lot better than the chronological format that seems to be the standard for "Blogs"; information becomes contextual and meaningful as crosslinks develop between pages. You don't have the compartmentalization that comes with organization by date and/or category.

As an added experiment in meaningful context, I integrated the top five Google search results as sidebar links for each and every Wiki page on my site... sometimes the links aren't really all that related to the page's topic, but most of the time they're dead on. My next plan is to include the top five referring URLs on each page as well, which should get some interesting feedback happening in combination with Google's links.