Technology / Rick Moody Ice Storm Author to Tweet Short Story 140-character limit 'like haiku,' Moody finds By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff Posted Nov 30, 2009 4:34 PM CST Copied Writers Francine Prose and Rick Moody deliver a petition to the the Chinese Mission to the United Nations Thursday, May 1, 2008 in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow) Starting tomorrow, Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm, will release a short story told over 153 tweets—one an hour for 3 days. The Wall Street Journal asked Moody what's exciting about using Twitter for literature: After his wife opened an account for him: "I started quickly to see the character counter as some strange, poetical limitation that would be fun to work with." How did Twitter shape your writing process? "I used the character counter throughout the writing process, which means that Twitter fiction, at least as I practice it, is a lot like writing haiku. I really liked working with this limitation, the merciless brevity." What is unique to writing for the format? "There are, as yet, no handholds for how to pace a Twitter story, or how to sustain interest over the course of days. It’s a Wild West environment, really." (More Rick Moody stories.) Report an error