Many Scribes have probably never heard of these. In fact, I just learned what they were two days ago, but apparently they're huge in Japan and they have a large market, and the concept is so simple and so accessible I wonder why they're not bigger in North America (or at least Canada).
What are cell phone novels? They take your average novel-writing process and run it through blogger live-feeds with Twitter character/word counts with the portable and hyper-accessible smart phone platform. So basically writers publish online book chapters (that are short in length, I don't think they really get past like 200 words) with relatively high frequency, and they form a coherent story. Those novels then get voted on and stuff, and might get translated or print published or turned into a tv show.
This video will explain it way better but that's the basic premise: Intro to Cell Phone Novels.
So.... How do you feel about them? Are you tempted to start one? Do you think they're too different from your own process?
My first concern was quality control. And yeah, a lot of what I've glimpsed at textnovel.com reminded me of high school creative writing class, and it was definitely a very teen-fiction-y vibe (which isn't my thing but obviously that doesn't matter). The format's perfect for teenage readers, though, isn't it? And hey, if some Scribes who write more "adult" fantasy are interested in writing a cell phone novel, then that's great because there's definitely a market for that too! I'd love to see some of these CPN's written with more Cook/Erikson/Sapkowski influences, and I'm definitely tempted to start one for myself, if only as an experiment and as an experience.
What about you, Scribes?
What are cell phone novels? They take your average novel-writing process and run it through blogger live-feeds with Twitter character/word counts with the portable and hyper-accessible smart phone platform. So basically writers publish online book chapters (that are short in length, I don't think they really get past like 200 words) with relatively high frequency, and they form a coherent story. Those novels then get voted on and stuff, and might get translated or print published or turned into a tv show.
This video will explain it way better but that's the basic premise: Intro to Cell Phone Novels.
So.... How do you feel about them? Are you tempted to start one? Do you think they're too different from your own process?
My first concern was quality control. And yeah, a lot of what I've glimpsed at textnovel.com reminded me of high school creative writing class, and it was definitely a very teen-fiction-y vibe (which isn't my thing but obviously that doesn't matter). The format's perfect for teenage readers, though, isn't it? And hey, if some Scribes who write more "adult" fantasy are interested in writing a cell phone novel, then that's great because there's definitely a market for that too! I'd love to see some of these CPN's written with more Cook/Erikson/Sapkowski influences, and I'm definitely tempted to start one for myself, if only as an experiment and as an experience.
What about you, Scribes?