Twitterature: A New Form of Literature (PDF)
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Twitterature is a new form of literature using the Twitter platform. It involves using short posts to create various forms of writing like aphorisms, poetry, and fiction. Different authors have experimented with this form, retelling classic stories or crafting original pieces using Twitter's short-form style.
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Twitterature (a portmanteau of Twitter and literature) is a literary use of the microblogging service of Twitter. It includes various genres, including aphorisms, poetry, and fiction (or some combination thereof) written by individuals or collaboratively. The 280-character...
Twitterature (a portmanteau of Twitter and literature) is a literary use of the microblogging service of Twitter. It includes various genres, including aphorisms, poetry, and fiction (or some combination thereof) written by individuals or collaboratively. The 280-character maximum imposed by the medium, upgraded from 1 40 characters in late 201 7 , provides a creative challenge. Genres Aphorisms are popular because their brevity is inherently suited to Twitter. People often share well-known classic aphorisms on Twitter, but some also seek to craft and share their own brief insights on every conceivable topic. Boing Boing has described Twitter as encouraging "a new age of the aphorism", citing the novel aphorisms. Here are some examples of Twitterature: Twitterature by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin: A retelling of classic works of literature as a series of 140- character tweets from the main character. For example, a tweet from Hamlet might say, "WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN???". Twivortiare: A novel by Ika Natassa that is a compilation of tweets. March Flash Fiction Challenge Winners: Twitterature: A piece inspired by the writer's love of Chick-fil-A that uses her experiences there and adds fictional elements Poetry Haiku are a brief poetic form well suited to Twitter; many examples can be found using the hashtag #haiku. Other forms of poetry can be found under other hashtags or by "following" people who use their Twitter accounts for journals or poetry. Fiction Twitterature fiction includes 1 40-character stories, fan fiction, the retelling of literary classics and legends, twitter novels, and collaborative works. The terms "twiction" and "tweet fic" (Twitter fiction), "twiller" (Twitter thriller),and "phweeting" (fake tweeting) also exist to describe particular twitterature fiction genres L iterary classics and legend L iterary classics and legends are retold on Twitter, either by characters' tweeting and interacting, or by retelling in tweet format, often in modern language using slang. For instance, in 201 0, a group of rabbis tweeted the E xodus, with the hashtag #TweetTheE xodus; and in 201 1 , the R oyal Shakespeare C ompany and the E nglish game company M udlark tweeted the story of R omeo and J ulietIn 2009 , Alexander Aciman and E mmett R ensin published Twitterature: The W orld's Greatest Books R etold Through Twitter. Epicretold, by author Chindu Sreedharan, is another noteworthy work in this genre. The New Indian Express called it an “audacious attempt...to fit the mother of all epics, the Mahabharata, into the microblogging site Twitter.”Tweeted from @epicretold, and subsequently published as a full-length book by HarperCollins India, the story was narrated in "2,628 tweets" between July 2009 to October 2014. In an interview with Time, Sreedharan said it was an attempt to simplify the lengthy epic and make it accessible to the new generation—both in India and abroad.
