WSJ: How does that ticking clock affect your work? Does it make you want to write more shorter pieces, or to cap things with a large, all-encompassing work?

CM: I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

I can’t help laughing at that. McCarthy is genius.

When Novelr first started the main problem we had was on how to publish/write online fiction – the best methods of presentation, the best platforms, the nuts and bolts of the medium, if you will. That problem has largely been solved. Today, most of us know how to publish and write online fiction, and that is a good thing (it has been 4 years, after all). What we haven’t solved, however, is the old problem of the writer/reader divide: most of our readers are other writers. Most of our marketing efforts are centered into getting other writers to read our work. This is a little silly, and a little sad. There should be better, more efficient methods of finding new readers, that aren’t based on randomly yelling on ‘any and all’ social platforms.

I’m fairly certain that we’ll all have a lot to say on the topic. To that end, I’ve created a new category on Novelr – Marketing – to help reflect this focus. But before we do all that thinking and wrangling, there’s a video that I’d like to share (don’t worry – it’s short and it’s rather cute):

Tell me what you think of it, when you’re done watching. See you in two weeks.

… he then told me that what he was going to say next will be very shocking and unbelievable, and that if he didn’t actually experience it himself then he wouldn’t believe it. He took a look at the machine near the window and looked back at me and said he transported me into parallel Earth. He said he traveled to our Earth dimension and found me knocked out in the blazing heat with nobody around to help me out. Normally he said he doesn’t take outsiders through a portal but in my case he thought I needed urgent help.

And then aforementioned person finds tape of The Beatles, sneaks it back to our dimension, and digitizes it, at the imminent risk of waging intergalactic war. The album’s not bad, though. And free. (PS: a short story! Imagine that!)

As I’ve said before on the Poetry Foundation, with the rise of the web, writing has met its photography. By that I mean, writing has encountered a situation similar to what happened to painting upon the invention of photography, a technology so much better at doing what the art form had been trying to do, that in order to survive, the field had to alter its course radically. If photography was striving for sharp focus, painting was forced to go soft, hence Impressionism. Faced with an unprecedented amount of digital available text, writing needs to redefine itself in order to adapt to the new environment of textual abundance.

The full analysis is available on Snarkmarket. I’ve no idea how Tim Carmody finds things like this, but I’m grateful for it.

Do you read it because you write it? Do you read because you’re part of the community now, and you’ve gotten to know the other writers around you, and you’re reading their work the same way you might read the blog of a loved one? Do you even read at all?

If you don’t, not as many as you would like: why? Is it because of the medium?

(I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I have found that I do less long-form reading when I’m online, and to be able to read through a masterpiece like The Grapes of Wrath – a copy of which is sitting on my table at this very moment – requires the unplugging of my computer and the physical removal of my web browser. This isn’t good, for obvious reasons: I have probably read less in the past 6 months than I have in the last three years combined.)

There has been much talk lately of self-promotion in online fiction. Many of us seem enamored with the idea that web fiction writers; indie writers – these new, fringe groups (of which I am a part) deserve to be treated professionally: at the same level as traditionally-published authors. But perhaps these are answers to the wrong questions. Most online experiences today are made to be simple, easy, and addictive. Web fiction is unique in that it has little of the three. And so here we must ask ourselves a series of questions about our work: do we attempt to emulate the rest of the web? (Much of Novelr has attempted to do just that). Or should we attempt to find other possible methods for online expression? What are our answers to the following questions:

• Can it make someone gasp, or cry?
• Does it feel as special as a love letter?
• Does it compare to masterpieces of other mediums?
• Could it have gone further?

And: why should you read online fiction? Because when you have found the answer to that, one that is not couched in defensive or capitalist terminology, then you would have found the answer to the self-promotion problem. Till then, I’d like to know this: why do you read online fiction? It’s a good place to start.

(Image at top taken from Johnathan Harris’s presentation on digital storytelling.)

[Update] A clarification:

I believe I should respond as well: I read online fiction because I started writing it. This is a cop-out (and is certainly not the answer anyone wants to hear), but it is the truth. I would not have considered reading in this medium if it wasn’t for the fact that I considered writing in it.

Now this is in itself a compelling reason. The reason for me asking is this: are there any other compelling reasons? One of the oldest problems we have in online fiction is that there are too many readers who are other writers, and marketing often feels like cross-promotion: writers selling to other writers. This is simply ridiculous. So I am asking you in the hopes of finding someone who was compelled into reading without first considering writing. If there are none, then I’ll have confirmed a suspicion I’ve had for sometime now. (I’ll explain in a latter post.)

I’ve been using Twitter for a bit now, and while I’m by no means an expert, Eli has asked me to write an article on the usefulness of the network for web fiction writers, and so here I am.

A rough idea of what I use Twitter for: in the past couple of days I’ve discovered a great poem, found out about a Webfiction Podcast, voted for my favorite contestant in a literary reality show and almost became MCM’s marketing agent for The Vector.

On a more personal note I learned that one of the authors of the Peacock King just found her first grey hair at the age of 28, that Lord Likely is getting married (no matter how much I protest) and I’ve organized a sleepover party, pillow-fight included, with The Dispatch crew. And these things are only the tip of the iceberg.

For me Twitter has been a revelation. I have made contacts with web-fiction authors I would never have found otherwise, I have discovered great short-stories, poems and other digital art, and I got to take part in #3D1D, which really deserves it’s own article on the technologies MCM used.

These are my personal benefits, but I believe Twitter could be a real asset to all web-fiction authors, and I’ll try to explain how and why in this post. There really is no limit to the possibilities of the use of the medium, but I’ll try to cover the basics at least. If you don’t know what Twitter is and how it works, I’d suggest reading the TwiTip Starters Guide and Inkygirl’s Writer’s Guide to Twitter.

How it Works

Twitter defines itself as a microblogging system in which people can post short updates (there is a max. of 140 characters per update), and other people can subscribe to their feeds. 140 characters sounds very limiting, but you can say more than you think you can, and there is a subtle art in being brief and to the point. As far as I can see it there are 3 kinds of authors on Twitter.

1. The Personal Account
2. The RSS Author
3. The Balanced One

Until recently Eli himself was a good example of the first type. He didn’t use Twitter frequently, but when he did he tweeted personal thoughts. There weren’t any references to Novelr, and not many references to anything web-fiction related in general. He also didn’t really connect with people (because he didn’t know how to reply to them), so his Twitter feed resembled a stream of consciousness. Other variants of this are authors using Twitter as a chatbox with their personal friends, taking the “What Are You Doing Question?” to an extreme and posting everything they eat and do. There is nothing wrong with that, but in my opinion this isn’t using Twitter to its full potential.

The RSS Author is on the other extreme of the spectrum; there is nothing personal in these accounts. RSS Authors simply attach their RSS feeds to their Twitter account, and let it run on auto-pilot from there on. No interaction whatsoever. A variant of this, and probably more annoying, are the marketeering authors, who only use Twitter to promote themselves and their books. Both types aren’t using Twitter to connect, which is a big loss, because, since their streams aren’t very interesting, they probably won’t gain many followers.

The Balanced One is the ideal Twitter-using author. He varies personal updates with updates on his writing, publishing and other professional updates, promotes (through the art of retweeting) interesting content of fellow authors and contacts and interacts with his followers. The really cool authors take this interaction to a new level and come up with stuff like #3D1D. Off course there isn’t such a thing as a perfect twitterer, but aiming for a mix between personal, professional and peers should get you close.

Useful Features

Twitter has implemented a couple of nice features to make connecting with interesting people and content easier. The most important one is probably the hashtag. Each term that starts with a # is converted into a hashtag. These hashtags are searchable, which means you can easily find all tweets mentioning the topic. A lot of web-fiction authors are adding #weblit to their tweets concerning their web-fiction, or web-fiction in general. Some of them also use a hashtag for their stories, so people can easily find updates. MCM even named his project after the hashtag he used for it, #3D1D.

Some people organize chats around these hashtags, using a twitterclient like tweetchat, or the Twitter search function (search.twitter.com) on a set day of the week. The most interesting ones for web-fiction authors are #writechat, #dnchat and #wnchat, but there are a lot of others as well.

Another great side effect of the hashtags are the hashtags projects. A prime example of this is #fridayflash, where every Friday authors publish a Flash Fiction Piece, and tweet about it using the #fridayflash hashtag. J.M. Strother posts a weekly roundup on his blog of all stories published each week, and an Anthology is in the making.

On your profile you can easily save searches, so you can check your favorite topics with one easy click. My personal saved searches include ‘Online Novel’, ‘Online Fiction’, Web-Fiction and others, and by checking them daily I found authors publishing online that weren’t on the WFG, Muse’s Success or other Web-Fiction Directories.

Some authors have been creating characters accounts, and are tweeting in character. I find this a great way of connecting with fans and readers, and that it greatly adds to the web-fiction experience. Reading the adventures of Lord Likely is twice as fun since I’ve been following his twitter account and I’m sure other readers feel the same.

A final great feature are Twitter Lists. These lists are used to organize the people you follow into categories, so people can easily find people with similar interests. I have made one for web-fiction authors, which currently lists 124 tweeting authors of web-fiction. Once you’ve subscribed to a list, it only takes one click to subscribe, and the tweets of all those listed are within reach from your Twitter sidebar. Nancy Brauer of Strange Little Band has also made a Twitter list of fictional characters tweeting.

Last but not least I’d like to mention @onlinefiction, a Twitter account created by Naomi of Nomesque Fiction, which tweets and promotes various web-fiction on hourly intervals.

I have by no means mentioned everything there is to do on and with Twitter, so please do comment with your favorite accounts, hashtags or anecdotes.

Jan Oda tweets at @janoda, and presents her followers with a LOT of good links. (Image at top sourced from Flickr)

6. That brings to mind another point: the author bio photo. The less you look like someone who actually writes, the better. The only exception regards novel/memoir writers, who are allowed to look like writers due to the abuse they’ve heaped upon themselves, either literally or not. If writing a romantic novel, get out the makeup. Red hair is preferable. Make sure the photographer uses a special lens that will cause viewers to suspect they have some sort of visual problem that corrects all defects.

Also: “pose with your eyeglasses off, holding them in hand with one stem in the mouth, as if you’re about to eat your spectacles.”

They say: yes, you can use your Nook any­where — but the very best place to use it is in one of our stores. What’s more: as long as you’re in the store, you can read as much of as many books as you want. Just like if you were flip­ping the pages. That’s huge!

Tim thinks this is B&N’s way of leveraging their physical store presence over the Kindle. I think I’ve just found the new libraries of the 21st century.

There are two ways to look at this situation: One is to make the electronic gadget the star of a heroic tale called The Changing Media. New gadgets can do anything! They can not only put you in touch with friends, they can store your photo album, tell you your longitude and latitude, and write fabulous novels. But another way of describing the situation is to say that you can’t keep a good story down. The story, not the gadget, is what’s irrepressible. So powerful is the story as a way of communicating that it will even sprout in a cellphone.

One of the best commentaries on digital literature I’ve seen thus far. (via)

A Recap

Novelr’s been around for some time now, and in that time we’ve learnt quite a few things together. Let’s start off with a couple of things that we do know about presenting online fiction. Peel off that scalp and think back: what have we learnt together, exactly?

One of the first things we’ve got to remember is that reading online is crucially divided into two distinct stages. These stages exist in the offline, paper-book world as well, but they’re not as critical for the writer as they are on the Internet. The first stage is called the browsing stage. During this stage a potential reader skims content to determine if the work is worth reading or no. It isn’t just the opening text that the reader takes into account – in the browsing stage, it is everything from the subject matter to the included pictures to the size of the font to the weight of the book in the hands that goes into a reader’s evaluation. If the reader thinks the text is promising, he or she then moves into the second stage, the reading stage. You and I should know this – if you are a book lover, like I am, then you will recognize this stage as the one where you forget about the sun and the ocean and so get sunburnt with a shadow-image of a book burnt into your chest. The reading stage calls for complete attention on the text. Everything else – links, ads, sidebar text – are superfluous to the reading experience, and they fall to the periphery of a reader’s vision.

The second thing on presenting online fiction that we must remember is what I call the Picture Book Effect: credibility and perception of online content is shaped by the design/format in which that content is presented. In simpler terms: your readers judge your work by the visual cues you have on your site. There are deliberate differences between the New York Times and a celebrity gossip blog. Both appeal to different demographics, and so both have different visual cues. One is designed to be credible, the other is designed to be kinky. One is black and white, the other shocking pink. How readers view your site depends as much on the design of said site as it does on the text you have provided them with.

The third thing that we must recall are the basic principles of readable design. Large fonts, good contrast, clear colours. An intuitive site structure. What exactly these elements are and how you apply them is beyond the scope of this article – go read some of the previous Novelr posts on the topic, or pay a visit to the pros.

So what have we learnt? We have learnt that an ideal fiction format is designed around a browsing stage and a reading stage. We have learnt that the site must have a coherent visual identity, one that should – ideally, at least – complement the fiction. And thirdly, lastly, we have learnt that the site must be readable.

The Online Fiction Format

So what should an online fiction format look like? What elements should we include with it? In this we are faced with a complex task, and so it would be helpful to begin first by talking about what we wouldn’t need to include with the online fiction format.

The first thing we have no need to include is forcefully-readable text. This is simply pragmatic: it makes no sense to limit authors to one font over another, or to ban them from using font sizes below a certain cutoff-point. Neither can we stop writers from using electric pink or neon green in their prose. Most of us already know how to display our fiction in a readable manner. The ones who don’t will quickly learn from the lack of happy readers.

We don’t have to create distinct visual identities for each work. We also don’t have to adjust for all possible forms of presentation. Some writers will want innovative, highly experimental forms in which to present their fiction; this format does not serve them. It simple cannot: no format will attract or hold the interest of such mavericks for very long. This particular format will be for the majority of authors out there: the ones who want to write and who do not wish to worry too much about the underlying mechanics of code and presentation.

And so what should this format be like? At its most basic level, it should have two things:

• It should be built to accommodate the two states: browsing and reading
• It should be easy to customize, both visually and practically

We shall deal with these two elements in order.

The Reader Conversion

We have learnt earlier that there are two states for the online reader: the browsing stage and the reading stage. How can a presentation style be built around these two reading patterns? The answer is simple, but consists of two parts: we would need, first of all, to build two distinct screens for the prospective reader, that is consistent throughout the entire work/format. Secondly, those two screens would need to fulfill all that the reader would want in both stages of the reading process. I’m not going to say that this is dead easy (the second part, in particular, isn’t), but the base idea isn’t particularly complicated: at the browsing stage, give the reader a splash page. At the reading stage, give the reader text. Got that? Good. Now a little more detail:

The Browsing Stage

At the browsing stage, give the reader enough scannable information to make the decision to leave or to read. This sounds simple, but it isn’t: what you’re really trying to do is to convince the reader to choose the latter and not the former. There is a limit to this, of course – if your fiction is about vampire rabbits, and I am not interested in vampire rabbits, then there is very little you can do to make me choose to read your work. The trick is to get the readers that are open to vampire rabbit stories to make the conversion from browse to read.

I have no time to analyse the elements of a good, compelling splash page here in this article. I suspect that it would involve a fair deal of experimentation on my part, and a fair bit of patience on yours. But my case is that an online fiction format should provide writers with the tools to make a splashpage (and not just an about page) and that the splashpage should allow easy placement of a blurb, some links (latest chapter/first chapter etc), and some choice words from a selection of positive-ish reviews. For your perusal, some of the best I have seen so far:

Winter Rain, by Chris Poirier (yes, that same god behind Web Fiction Guide)

A Timely Raven by Amber Simmons

Beasts of New York by Jon Evans

Getting Real by 37signals

… and Speak Human by Eric Karjaluoto.

This last one isn’t actually a splashpage for an existing book, but a promo site for a pre-release non-fiction title. I’m including it to make a point that the online fiction format should be able to have writers adapt their splashpage from site-intro to preview, and that this may work, too, regardless of whether it is fiction or non-fiction the format needs to handle.

The Reading Stage

And so that covers the browse stage. For the read stage, however, the online fiction format should be crafted so as to limit distractions from the reading experience. This is a complete opposite to the browse stage’s objective of providing as much scannable information as possible. In the read stage, you want to remove as many scannable elements as you can, for this detracts from the readers’ concentration on the prose.  What this means, practically, is a limitation on the number of sidebars possible. No sidebar is good, one sidebar is the maximum allowed. (I’m tempted to make exceptions for thrillers and David Wellington, but then again this is a fiction format and it has to be general and simple all through. Sigh.) MCM’s novels have the read stage screens perfected (image below), and so have 37signals with their book Getting Real (here’s an example of a chapter).

The basic rules for a good read stage screen is this: navigation before the text, stuff after the text, no distractions in-between. Things like exhortations to donate or to buy the book may be included after the end of the chapter, at the bottom of the page, or you may choose to place those pages on a separate screen at the very end of the novel. That’s up to you. A basic fiction format should, at least – I believe, have this underlying structure.

Flexibility And The Fiction Format

Now that we’ve dealt with the browse/read design philosophy, let us turn to the idea that the online fiction format should be easy to customize, both visually and practically.

When I say visually, I mean that the design must be simple enough to allow all kinds of writers to use it and adapt it for their own, distinct, purposes. This is not easy to achieve, for it takes a certain amount of ability as a designer to create themes that are universally applicable. The only example I can think of, at the moment, is the Minima theme of the Blogger platform, originally designed by Douglas Bowman in 2004. It is used by hundreds of blogs worldwide: all similar, yet never the same.

When I say that the format should be easy to customize practically, I mean that whatever format it is should be easy for any writer to turn into their own. Minima’s beauty is that it can be completely changed by just adding an image header and a background image to whatever blog it is that you have. The online fiction format should have this ability, too. I am not yet a good programmer, but I believe that it is possible to integrate this functionality to the backend of the fiction format theme/system: optional fields to upload and modify the header/background image of the site you’re using it on.

Conclusion

If you’ve been following closely, you’ll realize that any and all of these elements can be applied to the existing content platforms of the web. It is true that the suggestions I have offered here can simply be implemented with a theme; in fact, if I felt like it I really could go out right now to whip one up for the Blogger platform. But this is merely one aspect of the online fiction format, and there have been countless other suggestions besides. MCM has already suggested e-commerce integration, Jim Zoetewey suggests built-in ebook conversion ability (such as a one-click conversion of chapters into PDFs or ePub files). There’s no reason all these and more can’t be integrated into the online fiction format; in fact, some of us have already taken the first few steps in these particular directions. These are my suggestions, I’m sure you have many more. Over to you.