There are two pieces of news that may be of interest to readers here:

1. I have a guest post, “Four Rules For Community” over at Novelr. It covers things to do to help out with and be a part of a community, particularly an online community like ours.
2. There’s a new link in the sidebar for a “Webfiction Community Search.” This uses the Google Custom Search service to search several sites related to webfiction, including this one, Novelr, Pages Unbound, and the ELO. More will be added as I get the chance. Expect to see the search form added to the sidebar once its search area has been expanded a bit.

Genres: Urban fantasy
Content: Normal – PG-13

Schedule: Daily – extra content on weekends
Maturity: Mature (final draft, ongoing)

Print Editions: None
Financial Status: Unknown

CM Reviews: None
Other Reviews: Reviews on Pages Unbound (9.0 out of 10 as of 11 February 2008)

Comments: None

Firstly, I was not aware of Novelr’s “Blooking Needs A Community” when I began this project, but I’d spoken to someone who was and I fully agree with it. I am going to repeat (slightly edited) the comment that I made there:

I think that it is entirely true that there is no one good universal point of entry for blooking or webfiction. Nor is any one site capable of being our community. But you know what? Pages Unbound is a good point of entry for some people. An individual story is for those who like it, assuming that itâ€s got an adequate links section. And you know what else? Novelr looks like a bit of community. So does Pages Unbound, in a different way. And Iâ€m trying to set up my own bit of community right here. No one site is going to do everything, but put together weâ€re pretty good. The community exists, or is starting to, itâ€s just not connected well enough to be obvious yet.

Secondly, I’d like to give a quick rundown of the posts already here:

1. There are a lot of post templates. These are largely for the use of people writing posts here (guest submissions encouraged!) and can be safely ignored by everyone else.
2. There is an editorial about webfiction explaining “Why I Care (and You Should, Too).” It was adapted from a preexisting piece, so it’s not in quite the same style as future editorials.
3. There is an article on terms such as blooking and webfiction, “No Uncertain Terms.” It is accompanied by an editorial sidebar full of unanswered questions, “Priming the Pump.”
4. There is a review of the story Othar’s Twitter by Phil Foglio et al. accompanied by an interview with the man himself.
5. Last but not least, there are a couple of database entries on stories that I’ve read through. I’ll be adding to these as I read and review stuff, and anyone who writes something is free to add their own.

Hopefully this gives you some idea what to expect from Critical Mass. If I’m really lucky, it will even give you an idea for something to write for Critical Mass. In any case, feel free to leave a comment below giving suggestions, encouragement, or whatever else comes to mind.

Title: Othar’s Twitter
Site: http://twitter.com/Othar
Grade: B+
Recommended for: Fans of Girl Genius, pulp heroes/adventures, and/or narration by friendly, intelligent psychopaths
Database entry: /stories/othars-twitter

[Sidebar: An interview with Phil Foglio]

Preliminary notes

1. Othar’s Twitter is written on Twitter, a personal status-message syndication service. Twitter has a 140-character limit for posts, which Othar’s Twitter works within rather than attempting to circumvent.
2. Othar’s Twitter is a prose side-story to the popular webcomic Girl Genius. It contains at least one minor spoiler for Girl Genius (for the end of Volume 3) and may not be entirely comprehensible without having read at least some of the Girl Genius background material.
3. This review will have to repeat the minor spoiler for Girl Genius volume 3, as it is important to understanding Othar’s Twitter.

They called him mad

Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, is a hero. He is quite sure of it. How could he not be? He battles the (presumably) evil overlord of Europe when not ending the reigns of terror of the mad scientists (or “sparks,” as they are called) who plague the countryside. He is equally sure that being a hero means that he will always win. Unfortunately, he also believes that all sparks, regardless of circumstances, are inevitably evil and must be killed . . . including, eventually, himself. This friendly, intelligent psychopath is the narrator of Othar’s Twitter, written as if he was actually providing status updates on his life via Twitter.

It is often interesting to read a story narrated by someone who is insane. It is almost always interesting when the narrator realizes that they are insane, particularly if they are not entirely clear on the nature or extent of their madness. It is also very difficult to write such narration in fiction, and Phil Foglio et al. deserve praise for managing it. However, in this case it is more than just good writing, it is a key part of the underlying goal of the work.

During my interview with Phil Foglio (see sidebar), he said that “A large part of the Girl Genius meta project is an attempt make people aware of the difference between ‘history’ and ‘narrative’, and how different people see the same thing in different ways.” Othar certainly sees the world differently from many people, but not from all. Indeed, he is a folk hero in the Girl Genius world because he actually does rescue innocent villages and towns from oppression and impending destruction at the hands of mad scientists, even if he’s viewed as a dangerous psychopath by those who feel that less-dangerous sparks should be considered innocent until proven guilty. However, it is not clear to me that Othar’s Twitter is always effective in getting across the moral that Phil stated in the interview.

Othar’s Twitter‘s storylines has steered clear of the main Girl Genius plot, and it of them, meaning that neither work provides an alternative viewpoint on the other. Although Othar does seem to be capable of comprehending others’ viewpoints on some level, there haven’t been many in the Othar’s Twitter stories so far. The first story arc does not include Othar being confronted with any worldviews other than his own. The second does show Othar being confronted by alternative points of view, but one of the two major ones has already appeared in Girl Genius proper and the other seems to be the result of one side not having all of the facts regarding a previous incident. (It is possible that there is more at play there, but if so, Othar’s madness renders him incapable of realizing and transmitting it to the audience.) I’m not sure that a difference in views based on a difference in knowledge of the facts presents an effective argument or example for the stated moral.

Moral aside, Othar’s Twitter is a highly entertaining read, especially for a fan of Girl Genius. The short entries are well-crafted, use an unusual but interesting narrative structure, and are easy to keep up with. They are also rather silly. Insofar as its immediate goal is to entertain and engage people who are or might be interested in Girl Genius and one of its best-loved side characters, Othar’s Twitter is a resounding success. I will be reading this one for the foreseeable future.

Othar’s Twitter receives full marks for entertainment and technique. It also achieves its immediate goal of entertainment and engagement. However, although it does make some progress towards helping with the message of the meta-project that it is a part of, it mostly fails at that goal, keeping it from qualifying for a grade in the A range. While it may improve in the future, for the moment I have to give Othar’s Twitter a B+.

Genres: Steampunk, pulp heroic/adventure
Content: Normal

Schedule: Daily
Maturity: Mature (final draft, ongoing)

Print Editions: None
Financial Status: Breaks even (see comments)

CM Reviews: B+ (28 January 2008)
Other Reviews: None

Comments: A prose side-story to the financially successful webcomic Girl Genius, intended to boost sales; there is no evidence that it does, however. (c.f. CM‘s January 2008 interview with Phil Foglio)

The following interview was conducted via e-mail with Phil Foglio between 23 January 2008 and 26 January 2008. It is being published here as a sidebar to a review of his webfiction, Othar’s Twitter. Formatting has been applied, the e-mails have been merged into one threaded interview, and there are a couple of silent typo corrections, but it is otherwise a complete transcript of the questions and their answers.

[Main Article: Othar’s Twitter review]

CM: M. Alan Thomas II for Critical Mass
OT: Phil Foglio of Othar’s Twitter

CM: Is there a proper title to this work? I’m currently calling it “Othar’s Twitter” because that’s what it is and that’s how it’s referred to in the link from the Girl Genius sidebar.

OT: Othar’s Twitter is how I always think of it.

CM: Who has what sort of input into Othar’s Twitter? I’d like a name or names to put into the “Author” field of my database, but I’m also highly interested in finding out what sort of input other members of the Girl Genius team have. None? Veto power? Supply ideas? Actually write some episodes?

OT: Othar’s Twitter is written by Phil Foglio, with the occasional aside from Cheyenne Wright. Originally it started out as something that any member of Studio Foglio could contribute to, a sort of round-robin communal thing of amusement. As it turned out, I was the only one who bothered to take the time to write something every day, so it became, de facto, mine.

CM: What is the theoretical update schedule? (A glance through the update times suggests “daily when I can / semi-irregular.”)

OT: Once a day. It what I do after I read my daily slew of webcomics.

CM: Would I be correct to assume that Othar’s Twitter will not be appearing in a print collection?

OT: Why would you think that? If I’m going to do all this work it would be a shame to waste it. We’ll use it somewhere.

CM: I may have underestimated your commercial genius. Do you think that Othar’s Twitter will be significantly different when read in print and all at once rather than online and serialized? (Do you think that it will lose anything?)

OT: Not at all. As it has a narrative structure, reading them in sequence should only make it more enjoyable.

CM: Is writing this a paid exercise?

OT: Nope.

CM: Is it intended to indirectly increase Girl Genius popularity/sales?

OT: Yes.

CM: Is there any evidence that it does affect those sales, regardless of your intent? I’m ask these questions because some people like tracking the financial health of the webfiction world just as they do the webcomics world.

OT: Nope.

CM: If you have an answer to the canonicity question (“Is Othar’s Twitter Girl Genius canon?”), feel free to give it, but given the complexity of that question applied even to Girl Genius proper, I’m not expecting one.

OT: Sure. Why not? The Girl Genius world is so full of amazing things that I don’t see any reason why someone else can’t have a few absurd adventures.

CM: I was thinking of the fact that the readership has generally taken the narrator of Girl Genius to be a good storyteller but an unreliable historian, so the question of canonicity becomes confused by whether we’re considering “historical” or “narrative” reality. In the case of Othar’s Twitter, the narrator is insane and has trouble interpreting reality, which doesn’t help. (Okay, so that’s not really a question, but if you’ve got any insights, I wouldn’t mind hearing them.)

OT: You’re absolutely correct. A large part of the Girl Genius meta project is an attempt make people aware of the difference between “history” and “narrative”, and how different people see the same thing in different ways.

CM: Is the current story arc (the train) coming to a close, or is this merely a peaceful interlude? This might affect the criticism part of the review, but I don’t think that it will affect whether or how strongly I recommend it to readers.

OT: The train story is coming to a close. It will blend right into the next arc, just like the last one did.

CM: In your opinion, how does writing for a ≤140-character medium affect your writing?

OT: I have to think about what I want to say and I have to decide on the exact word or turn of phrase I need. I have to be very critical about whether something is really necessary or not.

CM: What techniques do you use to keep each episode complete and informative despite being so short?

OT: I have to craft each entry carefully, as opposed to just typing away until my fingers get tired.

CM: How do you keep things moving when you can only say so much per day?

OT: Don’t take yourself too seriously and always be willing to make it funny.

[Main article: No Uncertain Terms]

Unanswered Questions

My first article here, “No Uncertain Terms,” has taken me quite some time to write. Part of this has been due to the amount of work required to write a long discussion of anything, even something where the basic outline and content are already known. Part of this has been due to having to revise it to make sure that someone whose eyes glaze over when presented with abstract, technical language won’t stop reading two sentences into it. However, part of it has also been realizing that, despite what I initially assumed, neither the outline nor the content of the article was as well-known to me as I thought that it was.

It is very important to realize how little one knows. Had I not realized how many unsupported assumptions I was making in attempting to precisely define “webfiction,” my later critical thought would have been skewed at best. This, in turn, could have negatively affected and restricted my own webfiction, as how I thought about the nature of my writing could reasonably be expected to have some effect upon it . . . I think. (That expectation itself is an assumption, and whether or not it is a correct one is an as-yet unanswered question.) The benefit of coming to a realization about what one doesn’t know is one of the reasons to attempt to write out in clear, precise language what one thinks one knows; very often this process results in discovering that it is quite a lot less than initially expected.

Of course, there are benefits to finding that there are unanswered questions beyond the (not unimportant) benefit of personal enlightenment. Among these is giving everyone else something to write about, a very practical benefit when running a site that solicits guest content. (Not that I expect that no one will want to discuss what I have already claimed to know for certain, but it’s nice to have guest content that doesn’t consist entirely of people disagreeing with me.) Guest submissions on any of these unsettled topics are not only allowed but encouraged; if I could answer them myself, they wouldn’t be on this list.

This brings me to the assumptions and unanswered questions themselves. What follows is a brief list of items that I have come up with just from writing “No Uncertain Terms”:

• When trying to label a work of fiction, are we actually attempting to categorize the work or the reader’s experience? Is there a difference? (If not, does that make serialized fiction a form of performance art?) If there is no difference or we are attempting to categorize reader experiences, does a work change categories depending on the circumstances (e.g., when it finishes serialization or goes from online to print)?
• Serialization would seem to have an effect on a reader reading the work as it is serialized. Does this alter the reader’s interpretation of the work? Does serialization have an effect on the work itself (the author’s output)? What effect remains after the serialization is over? If the work does not retain the episode breaks once it has finished serialization and been collected, would any reader who first encountered it at that point be able to meaningfully differentiate it from a non-serial work even if they were aware that it had been serialized in some manner? Do the answers to these questions differ between webfiction and serialized fiction where the episode breaks do not match any important logical structures?
• Does writing for an online medium and/or audience have any effect on the writer’s output? Is it useful to make a distinction between fiction written for online publication and that written for print publication? While media and physical structures, unlike logical structures, are not generally intended to convey meaning, they have the potential to create meaning by influencing a reader’s experience and interpretation of a work. Marshall McLuhan may have taken this concept a bit too far, but it remains valid enough, particularly when the works take advantage of physical structures or other opportunities only available in a specific medium. Is this potential for the creation of meaning actually fulfilled in any online fiction?
• Are there works that take advantage of serialization or an online medium in such a manner that they would lose something when converted to print? (Are there works that don’t?) Can these losses be mitigated? How?
• Is it ethical or even possible to alter a print work significantly enough to make it count as internet fiction (online fiction that takes advantage of or is otherwise significantly influenced by that medium) when it was not written for that purpose? (I’ll admit that this one is a crossover question from my professional interests in digital humanities and text digitization.)
• Is the term “blook” restricted to works that are originally published in that way rather than digitized from a print publication and serialized?
• If serialization has a definite effect on a reader’s interpretation of a work, does this mean that there are no fiction blooks that are not also webfictions? (Please note that this assumes that we are categorizing reader experiences and not works themselves or that the two are identical.)
• Does the use of phrases like “webcomics without pictures” help webfiction by relating it to something familiar and comfortable or hurt webfiction by making it seem like a maimed, inadequite form of webcomics? (Note: The “webserial” entry on Wikipedia is part of WikiProject Comics!)
• What do we do about problems with Wikipedia and the Open Directory Project? (Note: There is no legal category in the ODP for this site, as review and criticism sites only have a category under “Literature,” which is restricted to sites about printed works.)
• How can the answers to the above questions be used to improve the state of the art?

These are just the questions that I’ve thought of; feel free to come up with (and answer) some of your own as well.

Abstract

This article deals with the terms used to discuss online fiction, particularly serialized fiction. It briefly describes four critical concepts: media, physical structure, logical structure, and serialization. It then uses those concepts to define “online fiction” and three sub-categories, “internet fiction,” “blooks,” and “webfiction.” Finally, it discusses two problem terms, “webserial” and “internet soap opera,” and the problem schemas—formal organizations and category descriptions—or lack thereof used by Wikipedia and the Open Directory Project.

[Sidebar: Priming the Pump]

Background: Media, physical and logical structure, and serialization

The concepts used in this article and others include media, physical structure, logical structure, and serialization. In case the reader is not familiar with these and their importance, what follows are brief descriptions of each.

Media (singular “medium”), broadly speaking, are the materials that a work is made out of. One work may incorporate several media. For online fiction, the media are not only “prose” but also “screen” and, presumably, “website.” For most if not all internet fiction, “hypertext”—a medium in which navigation to related items is primarily performed through the use of hyperlinks—may be truthfully included in a comprehensive list of media, but care must be taken to avoid any confusion with the genre known as hypertext fiction.

Physical structure is the physical organization of a work. For the medium of a print book, the physical structure would normally be based on the page: Each page contains words at various points on it, a certain range of pages makes up the body of the book, and the body pages plus the front matter pages and back matter pages make up the volume. Online, physical structure is generally thought of as being defined by the webpage, although this is not an absolute. Physical structure is not normally meant to have any meaning and thus can freely change between editions. (Exceptions to the “no meaning” assumption include such items as concrete poetry.) However, physical structure can be used to aid in transmitting elements of logical structure, as when chapters begin at the start of a new page.

Logical structure is the theoretical, semantic organization of a work. In other words, it is the organization of a work intended to convey meaning. For a novel, this may include such items as chapters. If an author changes the placement of the chapter breaks between printings, they are considered to have revised their work, as this may alter some readers’ interpretations of it; anything with a similar importance is part of the logical structure.

Serialization is the process of releasing a single work (a serial) in multiple sections (referred to here as “episodes” for lack of a standard term) across a period of time. Newspaper comic strips, comic books, and some movie series are good examples, although serialization does not require the episodes to be distinct entities that are part of the logical structure or to maintain their separation in the physical structure when collected. (In other words, the episode breaks could be arbitrary divisions that are completely removed when the complete work is put together.) Serialization has historically been a common method of publishing fiction.

(Mostly) Certain Terms: Online and internet fiction, blooks, and webfiction

A variety of categorical terms are used when discussing online prose. Some of them have different meanings depending on who is using them. While this article does not pretend to be capable of settling those debates once and for all, some uniformity is necessary to ensure that when one person uses a term, everyone else understands at least the basic concept. Here, therefore, are several terms with generally understood definitions:

Online fiction is prose fiction that uses an online medium. It should be noted that “online fiction” generally does not include e-books or other works that, while possibly distributed online, are not designed for online viewing, but it does include digitized print works intended to be viewed online.

“Online fiction” is not really a term with a meaning greater than the sum of its parts, merely a phrase with a meaning made by combining those of its component words. Its meaning should therefore be universally understood.

Internet fiction is online fiction that is written for online viewing and takes advantage of or is otherwise significantly influenced by that medium. Using this definition, internet fiction does not include works of print fiction that have been digitized and put online unless significant effort has been made to give them a physical (display) structure that they could not easily approximate using their original medium, and possibly not even those. (Whether it is ethical or even possible to alter their structure significantly enough to make them count as internet fiction when they were not written for that purpose is a separate issue.)

While the phrase is only occasionally used, this article supports it. Linguistically, the phrase “internet fiction” seems to mean “fiction that belongs to the internet,” indicating the necessity of the influence of the medium, as opposed to “online fiction,” which merely means “fiction that is online.” However, while many people may grasp this distinction instinctively, it is by no means guaranteed that they will do so, so care must be taken to ensure that the audience understands the meaning intended when using this term.

Blooks (also used as a gerund, “blooking”) are either or both of two things: (1) blogs or functionally equivalent sites where each post is part of a serialized work and (2) print books that collect the contents of a blog. The first meaning seems to be restricted to works that, like internet fiction, are originally published in that way rather than digitized from a print publication, although that restriction occurs in actual usage more than in any written definition of the term.

The word “blook” used here—there are two other words with the same spelling—is a portmanteau of “blog book,” a phrase that can have either meaning as well, although it is mostly used with the second meaning. Furthermore, both meanings of “blook” are relevant to online fiction; the first may be used for a type of online fiction itself, while the second can come up when considering whether internet fiction always loses something when converted to another medium, such as print. Which meaning of “blook” or “blooking” is meant may often be figured out from the context in which it is used, but best practices should always include specifying which meaning will be intended in an article or other work and finding an alternative term for the other if it also comes up.

Webfiction is fiction blooking (first meaning) that has a logical structure based around the episode. It is possible for a fiction work to be a blook and not webfiction if the episode breaks do not match major logical divisions. (For example, a serialization service may break a work down into 1500-word episodes that do not match any divisions of the text more important than paragraphs.) Whether or not webfiction must also be internet fiction, either by definition or by necessity, is presently debatable.

The word “webfiction” is derived from “webcomic” and implies a similar nature and structure. It is not widely in use but has a clear relation to a word that is, so only a brief definition should normally be needed when it is used in places where it may not be known.

Uncertain Terms: Webserials, internet soap operas, and problem schemas

There are also a number of terms for online fiction which do not have generally accepted or acceptable definitions. On top of this, two major information sources have poorly-functioning schemas (formal organizations and category descriptions). These terms and schemas present the following problems:

A “webserial” is defined by Wikipedia as a “written work of literature available primarily or solely on the Internet” that is “released on the Internet in chapters as they are finished.”[1]

The problems with this are as follows: Nothing in the word itself implies that it is limited to textual works, it is used outside of Wikipedia for non-textual works such as video, and it is not in widespread use with that meaning even on Wikipedia. Instead, the word seems to normally mean a work of any sort, not just text, that is serialized online. As this would cover all current uses and not duplicate the meaning of any existing word, that definition is supported by this article. However, any use of “webserial” must be accompanied by a definition due to the potential for confusion.

“Internet soap operas” are defined by the Open Directory Project (ODP) as “Web-based entertainment series [that] usually feature continuing storylines and audience interaction, and are often patterened [sic] after television soap operas.”[2] This is differentiated from most “series stories” as follows: “Most series stories just contain basic character info and a collection of stories about those characters. If you’re [sic] pages have more in depth character descriptions, message boards, and lots of interactive activities, you may want to add your page to the Internet Cartoon or Internet Soap Opera Category instead.”[3]

Simply put, this does not provide a useful or clear distinction between an “internet soap opera” and any other type of serialized fiction. While the term could be useful in discussions that need a way to refer to stories intended to run indefinitely, as soap operas do, that distinction does not occur in the ODP’s definition. Furthermore, the category falls within the Online Writing section of the ODP, restricting it to textual works, whereas elsewhere on the internet it can refer to videos. For all of these reasons, this article does not support using the term until a clear, useful, and generally acceptable definition is found.

Returning for a moment to Wikipedia, it seems that the site does not have any clear concept of what terms to use or how to organize its thoughts on online serial fiction. Besides “blook” and “webserial,” there is also an entry for “blog fiction” that covers the same concept without any indication that either it or the other two entries are aware of each other’s existence. There may be more such, but Wikipedia also lacks a comprehensive listing of such entries—they generally are not even filed in the same categories—so it is impossible to determine whether or not there even are any.

The Open Directory Project, on the other hand, is entirely about categorization. It is possibly even worse than Wikipedia, however, in that there is no easy way to fix its problems. Structurally, the ODP employs a straightforward, strictly hierarchical organization that not only restricts a category from having multiple parents (although there is cross-referencing) but forbids a site from belonging to more than one category. This means that many sites have to settle for finding a category that represents the plurality (the largest minority) of its content or fits loosely at best rather than having a comprehensive listing of the categories to which it properly belongs. The Open Directory Project thus becomes much more difficult to use as a research tool, as a variety of categories must be explored to ensure that every site related to a single category has been found. On top of this, category definitions are too strict and seemingly arbitrary, and some sites do not appear to fit into any of the categories at all. While a listing in the ODP is still recommended as a way of improving a Google ranking, it cannot be considered an accurate or comprehensive index of the internet.

Conclusion

It is impossible to discuss any subject without first agreeing on what that subject is and what the terms used when discussing it mean; that is a basic requirement of all communication. Unfortunately, the subjects within online fiction are currently very ill-defined. Despite this, several terms may be defined well enough to serve as a reasonable starting point for further discussion. The use of these terms in just such a manner is highly encouraged, as further discussion and definition is absolutely necessary for any useful critical thought and advancement in the state of the art to occur.

Footnotes

All of the following footnotes are from the “uncertain terms” section of the article and are not only subject to change but hopefully will change. The quotations that they act as citations for were present at the URLs given as of 15 January 2008.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webserial
[2] http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Online_Writing/Fiction/Series_Stories/Internet_Soap_Operas/desc.html
[3] http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Online_Writing/Fiction/Series_Stories/desc.html

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