I’m sure you’ve heard it before – that Twitter is ruining … well everything about language and our attention spans; the demise of the English language and all things literary is upon us … yadda, yadda…
I have. Too many times to count. It seems to be easier to blame Twitter and, oh let’s throw in the Internet and internet speak as well, for the way our language is going because, really, what, if anything, have they brought positive to our literary lives?
I think it’s easy to blame technology and look to its downsides rather than ever considering positives – if nothing else, Twitter teaches you like nothing else can, the power of concise writing. Check out Teju Cole’s Twitter essays.
Now we have cell phone novels.
Called Keitai Shousetsu, chapters are at maximum, 70-100 words long due to character limitations on cell phones. These novels, interestingly enough, started with young women, who wrote romantic fiction, and who kept their identities secret. The chapters are sent directly to readers via email, SMS or through websites.
Cell phone novels are fairly recent – the first one is Deep Love, written by a gentleman under the pseudonym “Yoshi” in 2003. He went on to write four novels in the series, and it was later published by Stars Publishing. In 2007, five of the top ten novels in Japan were cell phone novels.
I keep wondering what would happen if writing like this was embraced rather than slammed, because whatever you think of it, the author in question has to make every word count. Granted, someone writing on their way to work isn’t going to worry about spelling compared to someone sitting at their computer and writing a manuscript they plan to submit somewhere, but does that make the literary form less as a result? Or am I just being too taken by the idea of cell phone novels?
The medium has increased in popularity in recent years in Japan. Deep Love was just the first picked up by publishers, TV and manga publishers.
It reminds me of fanfiction in a way – a much maligned form of writing, Amazon now has Kindle Worlds, and publishers are signing up to it so fans can write, but within the strict confines of the publishers’ rules.
If you’re willing to give cell phone novels a chance, check out Textnovel.com where you can find English-language cell phone novels – subscription is free. The iPhone app eMobo links to and from Textnovel, and lets readers store, share and organise their texts.