After the well-received film adaptation of his young adult novel Coraline, Neil Gaiman fans don’t have to wait long for their favorite author’s new work. In fact, they can help the British author on his latest work by collaborating with him on Twitter. His latest story is now being written as you’re reading this post.
Neil Gaiman, together BBC Audio Books America launched the Twitter Audio Project last week. The project aims to create an audio book based on an open collaboration between Gaiman and other authors using Twitter as the main tool for writing the narrative. Gaiman began the story by tweeting the first line: Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled & said, “We don’t love you anymore.” With the instructions posted on the BBC Audio Books website, users can tweet their contributions to the ongoing story. As per Twitter convention, the maximum characters per tweet should not exceed 140 characters. Once 1000 tweets have been logged in, the tweets will be compiled and edited into a complete story. This story will then be produced as an audiobook which will be made available as a free download on the BBC website. It will also be available on iTunes.
Contributors are advised to read up on the ongoing story’s scene summary before tweeting their lines. So far, there are already eight completed scenes. Additional comments on BBC Audio Books America’s Twitter page give further instructions on what is currently being written. Gaiman would also sometimes to make helpful comments i.e. whether a scene needs more action instead of dialogue, etc.
So far, the story seems to have progressed into the vein of Alice in Wonderland with a few elements from Gaiman’s own works thrown in. In the story, a girl by the name of Sam suddenly finds herself trapped in an alternate world while trying to rescue her brother from the clutches of an evil puppeteer. (Ed G)
