Social Fiction

I first read about this phenomenon in this article in the New York Times this summer, and I’ve been fascinated by the concept ever since.  Can you tell a story through social media, by manipulating the interactions between various users?  And more importantly, will anybody read it?

The novel referenced in the Times article, My Darklyng, is clearly meant for the teen girl set, and I figured I would be doing the concept a disservice to base my opinion on something I’d be unlikely to enjoy in hardcover anyway.  Instead, I tried 2009’s November in Manchester.  In this self-proclaimed "social media love story," a cast of eight characters blog and tweet about their lives over the course of a month, and the story emerges in the interplay between them.

My conclusion is that its definitely possible to tell a story in this way, but that it requires far more blunt language, in order to establish context, than the average social media user actually displays to the world.  In November in Manchester, James tweets “Persephone not answering my calls.  Will see if I can catch her at work.”  What kind of pathetic, sad-sack person admits to someone not calling them back to all of their friends and followers?  I’m not buying it.  In real life social media (oxymoron?) you don’t share “Time to say goodbye to the second woman in my life” after a break-up, you either post cheesy song lyrics or photos of yourself with someone attractive draped over you.  The characters in November in Manchester just lay it all out there, with none of the nuance and subtlety that people use when crafting their online personas.

I think the social media novel is an interesting experiment, but without the benefit of narrative and description afforded by a print novel, it relies too heavily on dialogue, forcing its characters into unrealistic exchanges in order to advance the plot.  I much prefer the device when it’s used irreverently – fake Twitter accounts are less ambitious in scope, deliberately tongue-in-cheek, and can still effectively tell a story – i.e. Toronto’s own RebelMayor (the only funny part of the 2010 mayoral election).  This is not unlike early film – the attempts at drama come across as contrived and overwrought, but comedy translates well in almost any medium.  Maybe social fiction just needs to come of age.