Twitter as the New Literature
My good friend, confidante and cutting edge writer, Jay Bushman has published a book entitled The Good Captain - and here's the thing, this fascinating sci-fi tale was written entirely in brief Twitter installments. The Wave-inatrix has evolved, over the past decade, from a person who clung to old literature and poetry to someone who welcomes new ideas and new venues with open arms. Humans are always evolving. Else stories would still be told before a monarch upon pain of death. There are so many ways to tell a story and these bite-sized missives by Jay have an overall impact of telling a well-wrought, gripping story. Here, for example, is the opening of The Good Captain:
In the year 2143, Tyler Monroe Lockham captained a small entrepreneurial trading ship, the Skipstone.
Captain Lockham was a Shareholder, Third Class, in the Namerican Branch of the Mercantile Empire of Greater Earth.
The Skipstone had completed a voyage among the worlds at the edge of his Empire's reach. Now he was on his way home with valuable cargo.
At the outskirts of the solar system, in the darkness between the Kuiper Belt and Neptune, he stopped to replenish his supplies.
It's really a fun read, Wavers, and such an interesting way to write. If you are interested in watching the story unfold, you can get a paperback version, online archive or Amazon Kindle E-book.
P.S. The Wave-inatrix would really like a Kindle for Christmas. Just a hint. Now get back to work!
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1 comment:
Referencing Bushman's last appearance in Wave-trix land, I see myself as both storyteller and screenwriter. It's been my argument all along that screenwriters get corrupted by studios and allow someone else to take credit for, "Story by -- " when the only credit a director should get is, "Interpreted by --"
And there are thousands of ways to tell a story, both written and visual, the question is because we've been trained as viewers and writers to adhere to the three-act structure, can we break away from the mold and be bold enough to accept new story technique?
I say yes, but at the same time we also have to be wiling to accept that these new techniques have audience limitations and a whole new set of questions: do we want to tell stories in ways that will reach the masses or are we willing to accept a smaller, core audience for our work? If we're willing to accept the latter then the internet is perfect--experimentation is perfect for that venue. If we are not willing to accept smaller viewing audiences then we betters tick to the archaic story principles (and the audiences that live there) of the past.
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