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Have You Visited #UrmCollab? / Getting Creative with Twitter

Creed

Sage
This is just the coolest thing I've seen on Twitter in, well, maybe ever...
(Scroll down for the earliest Tweets)

Here's the tweet from @Harkaway that started it all:
#Urmcollab is a hashtag I just inaugurated for a shared Twittering about an imaginary city. Anyone can play. Pick a tweet and follow on.

Hundreds of people then began tweeting away micro-stories in the enigmatic, endless City of Urm. And the city actually kind of came alive, with people adding in multimedia to their tweets, some people grouping together to form short but coherent narratives, and others popping by to add mysteries, histories, and revisionist histories. There are conflicts, sure, but they somehow work together. Urm is, after all, impossible.

The talk of a shared universe in World Building reminded me of this gem. As a game and a writing exercise I think it's brilliant. As a way to put yourself out there in the screaming Twitterverse I think it's got an edge too.

Besides just sharing Urm, I'm wondering what kind of crazy cool promotional things any Scribes (or other authors) have done on social media. Has anyone used Twitter to make some bite-sized reading for their WIP? Would you do something like this?
 

Creed

Sage
Too bad I don't have twitter nor understand how to use it. It looks like it hasn't had any recent activity though.

Yeah, it's too bad it's over. Then again, something like this could just as easily pop up on MS forums. Low-commitment flash fiction, 140 words or less? Hmmm... an exercise for a rainy day!
 
Yeah, it's too bad it's over. Then again, something like this could just as easily pop up on MS forums. Low-commitment flash fiction, 140 words or less? Hmmm... an exercise for a rainy day!

Occasionally we get something like that going on the forums over at Scribophile. It's an add a line to story type thing ... It's fine at first but then it gets really annoying that nobody can get along ... we started out with what was supposed to be a realistic Crime Fiction story about rum runners in prohibition era Chicago but then the Spec Fic and Erotica writers got a hold of it. Suddenly a thousand new characters were added and everything got derailed. A few of us kept trying to get the story back on track (since it was supposed to be a single cohesive piece of Realism) but a several of the others were really ornery. They kept trying to bring in graphic incest and who knows what else- it just pissed everyone off. The Crime writers tried killing off all of their ridiculous subplots but there's only so much we could do ... The issue was different genres, no content standards, and rude people intentionally trying to derail the story. I don't think that'd be a problem here though.

If everyone has the understanding that it's Spec Fic and you lay down ground rules and limiting "But it was all a dream" sequences (once something is laid down, it has to be accepted) then I can see it going much better.
 
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