I first came across Margene's blog when I became addicted to the HBO television show "Big Love" last summer. Over the course of a couple of weeks I'd watched the entire first season on DVD and all the current shows available on OnDemand. I was desperately searching for the next season's start date when I noticed the blog. I find it amusing and well-written (only because it is very much in character) and also just a little bit creepy. You see, Margene is not a real person. She is a character on Big Love, played by the actress Ginnifer Goodwin. The comments section is particularly interesting. Most of the posters are either deluded -- like those people who attack the actors who play villains on soap operas when they happen to see them in public -- or else they are playing along really, really well. I had to fight the urge to post myself. I wanted to ask "Margene" leading questions, to try to draw out more of the story and more information about the characters. And then I thought, "Okay, this clearly means it is time to turn off the computer."
According to this article about the growing trend of television characters "writing" blogs, Margene's blog -- apparently written by a writers' assistant -- is one of the best of its kind because it reveals interesting and perhaps pertinent information about the world of the television show that wasn't on the show. Most blogs supposedly written by television characters offer nothing in the way of extra story -- they're little more than a cutesy marketing technique. And frankly, Margene's blog could go a lot further. It'd be interesting to watch/read a television show/blog that worked in tandem, where both media were equally important to the forward momentum of the story.
And then I was reading Absurdistan
And so, for the next half hour, while I stroked her body up and down with my lurid male gaze, Nana told me many, many facts about the Cathedral of Saint Sevo the Liberator. I will try to relate some of the highlights (did I mention the orange highlights in Nana's soft brown hair?), but for a full appreciation of this weird octopuslike church, the reader should turn to the Internet.
And so I did. Not because I was particularly interested in Shteyngart's imaginary church but because I hoped that he'd provided some kind of extension of the novel that googling "Cathedral of Saint Sevo the Liberator" would reveal. Nope. As far as I can tell that link leads only to a post about the book on the NABOKV-L listserv. The novel is terrific but it would have been beyond perfect -- hilarious and somehow very fitting to both Absurdistan's plot and tone -- to discover more online, even if it were just a paragraph or two.
And that got me thinking about the notion of a kind of online novel written in the form of a blog with links to other kinds of sites. I don't mean a straightforward serial novel posted in blog form. I don't even mean some kind of densely literary, amorphous hypertext novel written on special software, like the kinds Robert Coover's students appear to be writing at Brown, or like Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl, which I purchased years ago and tried to read but never felt particularly drawn into. And I absolutely don't mean an elaborately produced game/story like the viral marketing campaign designed for the movie A.I. I'm thinking of a kind of novelistic story -- something with narrative drive and mostly in the first-person -- told online through a blog and associated sites, some of them real sites where the author would be permitted to post like anyone else, and some of them sites conceived and built solely for the novel's purpose. I think that would be fascinating. And I think it's inevitable. I'm guessing the first one will be written by a science fiction author and/or one who writes for young adults.
Or am I late to the party again, as usual, and something like this is already exists? And if so, what is it called? An internovel? A nog?
what are you waiting for? Start writing.
My novel for NaNoWriMo last year was written bout half in the form of a blog, but it was still intended as a print book. I like your idea, though. It's very...meta. Maybe we can get David Mitchell to write his next one like that....
Posted by: babelbabe | December 03, 2007 at 02:49 PM
Oh god, I'm still trying to learn how to write an acceptable *conventional* short story.
David Mitchell maybe. How about Rupert Thomson.Or Kate Atkinson?
Posted by: Stephany Aulenback | December 04, 2007 at 11:04 AM
A novel in the form of a blog and a bunch of associated sites, if it's all written and built with the level of love and attention to detail appropriate to a real novel, is a lot of work. More work than one straight novel. So it might take more than one novelist.
Also, it's going to be visible, readable, as it's built. How do you go back, rewrite, let the latest notion feedback into the earlier ideas and modify them?
You need a strong idea that allows for all this, you build up a small cast of characters. Then writers volunteer to inhabit each of the characters. (You cast it, like a film or a play).
Then they generate the work by interacting in character, inside the frame of the story... which, if it works, will definitely warp and bend as it grows, into a shape that couldn't have been plotted in advance.
Might need a bit of technical support, as writers tend to build lousy websites.
Posted by: Julian Gough | December 07, 2007 at 11:27 AM
I agree about the technical support but I'm not sure I agree with the idea that you'd absolutely need a whole cast of writers. I also don't think the internovel would necessarily have to be viewed as it was being written. For instance, in Typepad, I can post on a blog that is not made public to anyone else until I allow it. And the associated sites wouldn't have to go "live" until they were ready. I don't think you'd necessarily need a lot of associated sites, either. I think what you're describing is an interesting thing -- a collaborative, interactive, internet novel -- but it's not exactly what I'm imagining. I don't think that "hypertext writing" necessarily has to be as amorphous and uncontrollable as writers who are used to more conventional structures imagine. I don't agree that it's impossible to situate the reader in time and follow a somewhat linear, but branching, plot line, either. (I know you didn't suggest that -- but a lot of writers, particularly the literary, academic ones, seem to think that all the rules must change, absolutely, once the writing becomes hypertextual. At least as far as I can tell.) When I read someone's blog, for instance, I can tell exactly where I am in time. I do think it would probably be more difficult for a writer to figure out the structure, though. At least, for a writer of our generation. I'm betting the ones coming up won't find it as nearly as difficult.
Posted by: Stephany Aulenback | December 07, 2007 at 12:53 PM
Don DeLillo's Underworld attempted, briefly, towards the end, something like this, and failed. I don't remember the context in the book, but he included the actual text of what should have been a link (http:// and all), written a bit wrong, and leading nowhere, if you were curious enough to actually go to a computer and type it in.
Maybe this is tangential, but it seems related. Frustrating, and maybe a warning about the difficulties of integrating the two media.
Posted by: Liz Blake | December 07, 2007 at 01:52 PM
Walter Kirn's novel The Unbinding does something like this. He has links at http://www.walterkirn.com that correspond to phrases printed in bold in the book.
The book was originally serialized on Slate, but that version seems to have different links.
Posted by: Kevin | December 07, 2007 at 02:26 PM
I don't remember that from Underworld, Liz. Thanks for mentioning it.
And Kevin! Thanks so much for the link to Walter Kirn's The Unbinding. I found the novel on Slate's site and will try to read it. Why do people persist in thinking a white font on a black background is a good idea, though? I know it looks techy but I can barely read it. Still, I'm going to give this one a good try.
And I found this conversation between Kirn and Gary Shteyngart (how odd -- or rather, how fitting) on Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2151004/entry/2151016/
Kirn has some interesting ideas about how an online novel would work (they're in his last letter, the fifth letter in the series) but he still seems to be making the whole enterprise a lot more complicated than it needs to be, I think. For instance, it doesn't need to be written in real time -- why not put up something complete and let all the interesting, real time stuff happen naturally, as people link to sections they like and comment on them. Others can extend the story at that point. Or the novelist can do a kind of sequel. A novel is a well-thought-out performance -- it's not an improvisation. Sure, a great deal of the stuff online is instantaneous and fly-by-night -- it doesn't necessarily follow, though, that an internet novel has to be or even should be.
And the pair of them seem a bit melodramatic about the differences between the computer-less past and the uber-techy future. They both write as if we're all going to shed our physical bodies like so many snake skins and float away into the ether. The future is going to be different from the past, yes, but I don't think it's going to be THAT different.
I must say that Shteyngart has excellent taste in bloggers, though.
Posted by: Stephany Aulenback | December 07, 2007 at 03:55 PM
Laszlo Krasznahorkai's novel "War and War" has a link to where, if I remember correctly, the fictional narrator will post, so as to save forever, a literary masterpiece. You can go to it at www.warandwar.com. Unfortunately, I don't think it really adds all that much to the book. Interesting idea, though.
Posted by: D. Heikkinen | December 07, 2007 at 05:41 PM
I tried starting something like that called American Hate last year. Turns out that a novel of letters (which is effectively what you're describing here) is not actually that easy to put together and my life got too complicated and busy to continue.
I have been thinking of trying again. If you don't mind the pimping, this is where the project sort of kicked off and stalled. Feedback very much appreciated:
http://american-hate.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Tadhg | December 08, 2007 at 04:28 PM
I really like the concept of the online novel/blog. First of all, I think the idea of having a fictional personae online obviously isn't new, and I bet there are quite a few blogs that are entirely delusionally unreal. As far as a narrative, there are examples like youtube's LonelyGirl15 (well, video blog) which users didn't even know wasn't real at first.
Also, chuck palahniuk's "diary" would be a good example of the use of a interesting format. you would just need to translate the style to blogging, which is just like diary entries.
Which makes me wonder: if you post a blog that is meant to be entirely "in character," how do you inform readers that it is meant to be read as a work of fiction? In the case of a TV-character blog, I guess it's assumed people will figure it out. But an entirely original work would have some kind of banner on the top explaining what the story is?
Finally, if you were to have every blog post pre-written, and then posted them within the correct time span (as in: if the character is "writing" it late at night, than thats the time it will be posted... etc). If readers want to post questions or comments, maybe the "character" can respond, but this wouldn't change the narrative flow. The links would be especially interesting, as you could maybe link to some staged flickr.com photos, or even a mysterious youtube clip.
...maybe it would be more like performance art though...
Posted by: Doug | December 11, 2007 at 03:23 AM
My blog, www.project1968.com is a Blog Docu-Novel - adapted from a play that I wrote. It's based on daily/regional newspapers, 10,000 pages of government documents from the LBJ Library and books. It corresponds to the real world dates. Jan. 14, 1968 = Jan. 14, 2008. Links are included.
Posted by: Laura | January 21, 2008 at 05:56 PM
My novel, Virtual Yardies, which I completed last year now exists (partially--ten chapters) on the internet.
Here was the first post:
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-novel-virtual-yardies.html
I'll keep you posted on further developments. Until then, you can begin reading it here:
http://virtualyardies.blogspot.com
Peace,
Geoffrey
Posted by: Geoffrey Philp | January 27, 2008 at 05:07 PM
Thanks, Laura!
I posted the link back to your article on my blog today:
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2008/01/virtual-yardies-hypertext-novel.html
Posted by: Geoffrey Philp | January 28, 2008 at 06:39 AM