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
Ice Storm Author to Tweet Short Story
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.)

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