This is not the end

Some of you may have noticed the lack of activity around here. Well, lack of blog posts at least, but not lack of comments. I have decided to take a long break. Nothing in particular has sparked this. I still enjoy reading blog fiction. I also still enjoy talking to the authors and interacting with fictional characters. I've just felt like I'm approaching burnout so I've decided to take a break from the blog, while I still enjoy it.

This isn't to say that I'll be reading any blog fiction while I'm gone. I just won't be writing about it. Also, I will still be maintaining the blog fiction widget. I've made a commitment to it I'm not going to walk away from it. So if anyone wants to add it or be added to it, be sure to let me know here or in the forums. Speaking of the forums, I'll still be monitoring the forums, but won't be participating much in them. I'll mostly monitor for new blog entries.

I apologize for having to take a break, though know that I plan on being back in January. Something about starting off the new year with a new blog commitment seems right. So, this isn't the end. This is just a break. Since I won't be around for them, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and have a good Boxing day. See you all after the holidays.

Update 1-02-09: This blog will return on January 12th, 2009. I can hardly wait to return.

October News Roundup

Some Interesting News Bits happening in the Blog Fiction World. Some old, some recent, all of it was news to me in the last month. I know I usually post this on the last or second to last day of the month, but I can't quite seem to squeeze it in lately.

Novelr on hiatus
Novelr announced early in October that the blog will be on hiatus until December 4th. Nothing too unusual. Novelr is known for taking occasional breaks. With the quality of his observations and dedication to blooks, I guess we let him.

BlogRush Over
Obviously my damning review of that useless BlogRush widget did them in. BlogRush has announced that their idea and experiment is over. It's a shame really. I think the idea had merit, but they didn't experiment enough with it. They did try different things, but one thing they never messed with was the look of the widget itself. A shame, really. Something that was better at drawing people's eyes might have really helped the thing.

Newly Found Blog Fiction sites
Some really high quality blog fiction sites found in the last month or so. (well, in some cases, they found me) All of the ones below were found this month and are still active.

Evangiline's Ride
Follow the story of a girl as she and her band go from nobodies to rock & roll super stars. Jealousy, romance, and tension laces every post.

Tapestry
A fantasy diary of a family as they struggle to survive living in a world ran by a corrupt kingdom.

A Stab in the Dark
Believe it or not, A blog fiction that is based on a video game. Follow the story of a Rogue in World of Warcraft

The Diary of a Dhampyr in England
Follow the story of Tavoris Tarvoris, a half vampire half human. Great conflict right from the start.

Did I miss anything? Have your own October news? Let me know in the comments.

Blog Fiction I'd Like to See: Halloween Edition

I think Blog Fiction has a lot of potential. Most of it is still untapped. This post is going to be a little self indulgent while I list Blog Fiction that I would like to see and read. There are several attempts at vampire based blog fiction. Here are some other Halloween inspired Blog Fiction ideas. Feel free to steal and modify as you wish.

Ghoul Respect.
What's a ghoul? Ask yourself. What is a ghoul. I know what a ghost is. I know what a vampire is. I know that a zombie is. What about a "ghoul". They aren't portrayed uniformly across our literature and pop culture - if they're portrayed at all. Zombies get tons of movie deals. Vampires had their own TV series and spinoffs. Ghouls? Nothing. Does that affect the self esteem of ghouls? I'm thinking a blog where a ghoul laments the lack of respect and recognition for ghouls, and tries to raise their profile so kids are just as scared of ghouls as they are the "boogeyman". Unfortunately, plans always go awry.

Sample Post
I've given up on selling my screenplay, "Nation of Ghouls". If I hear one more hollywood guy tell me that "audiences are grossed out by ghouls eating dead bodies", I'll kill him and eat his body.

So, Today I decided that if I'm going to scare kids, I should take a more direct approach. With the help of a friend I constructed a large sign that read, "Beware of recent Ghoul sightings." We put it up next to a graveyard that was actually near a school. The plan was to hide behind a tombstone then pop out and scare small children.

Things didn't go as planned...

My first victim was a 6th grade boy. I jumped right in front of him so he could see my hideous face and yelled, "I'm going to eat you little boy."

He stared at me for a second and said, "nice costume, perv".

"What? Hey, I'm freaking scary man."

"Whatev-" he said and continued walking.

I shrugged it off and saw my next victim. A little girl. Couldn't have been more than 7. When she got near, I jumped behind her and yelled out loud in my scariest deep voice. She turned around, screamed, sprayed me with mace, and shouted, "I need an adult!"

At that point the 6th grader from earlier came around the corner and said, "leave my sister alone, you perv", and kicked me in the nuts. He proceeded to kick me repeatedly. I tried to defend myself, but I couldn't see through the mace spray. I think he busted a rib. I may not be able to die again, but I sure can still feel pain.

Witches
How about a blog about modern day witches? No, I don't mean Wiccans. I mean real witches - the kind flying around on broomsticks and brewing potions using "eye of newt" witches. After all the burnings they decided to lay low and not use their powers overtly. The thing turns out though, there are different covenants of witches who are always fighting covert wars with each other. Kind of like a cross between gangs and the mob, but with magic. Although, the blog doesn't concentrate just on those wars.

I have no sample posts for this. But come on. Witches, spying, wars, surely there's enough material there for a good story.

Living with Zombies
Ok, this is pure comedy satire, inspired by Shawn of the Dead. There is a worldwide Zombie attack, but it was manageable. As it turns out, Zombies walk incredibly slowly so they aren't hard to take down. So we follow the blog of a typical person living in a city that is dealing with constant zombie attacks.

Sample Post
Today on the way to work a guy holding a can got really close to me. I didn't know if he was a zombie or a homeless guy asking for change. The PSAs on TV say I shouldn't take a chance so I hit him with the baseball bat I carry around for just such an emergency.

When I got to work I found out that my office mate had gotten infected at the mass zombie gathering the previous night. Sweet! I got an office all to myself. Go Zombies! Unfortunately, I was told I now have to do his job as well as mine... Fucking Zombies!

Well, that's a few of my halloween inspired ideas. Yeah, they could use some fleshing out, but damn it, I'd read those that blog fiction. Happy Halloween everyone.

Review Poll Results

A couple weeks ago I asked your opinion on whether or not I should do literary reviews of Blog Fiction. Well, apparently, the polling service I used only lets you run the poll for 2 weeks. I originally wanted to run it for a month. That'll teach me for using a free service. Fortunately, I had checked the results before it disappeared. The final count was:

75% In favor of reviews
12.5% Not in favor of reviews
12.5% Don't know, but just like voting in online polls

Unfortunately, only 16 total people voted. So I have no idea if that's representative. However, with no evidence that it isn't representative and based on the comments, it looks like the response was overwhelmingly positive.

Therefore, I will be doing reviews in the future. However, I'm not sure when the first one will come out. It will be a while because I want to make sure that any review I do is fair, well though out, and useful. It's very time consuming to do a full meaningful review.

Thanks to everyone who voted and left comments. Your feedback was invaluable.

NaNoWriMo Follow Up

I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post. In spite of my intentionally controversial(i.e. link bait) title, all the comments were civil, reasoned, and well thought out. I'm proud to have attracted such civil and reasoned readers. Just wanted to respond to some of the points that were raised by those who disagree with my assessment of NaNoWriMo.

First of all, I wanted to reiterate my biggest gripe with NaNoWriMo. It is people who are already writing that shutdown their current writing to do NaNoWriMo. If it wasn't for that, I'd just ignore the whole thing. Some pointed out rightly that the original intent of the competition is to get new writers to write. Based on the format of the competition that makes sense. So really, my problem is that people are using it for something beyond the original intent. The whole thing is turning into a beast that shuts down part of the internet for a month.

Another thing a lot of people said was how much they liked the intensity of writing in 30 days. Also, the interaction with others when you're all in the same situation. To that I would just say that just gives all the more reason to run the competition year round. Every 1st of the month a new batch of competitors could start off.

I also heard about established writers participating and people getting their NaNoWriMo novel published. To those people I would caution against using NaNoWriMo as a crutch. Waiting until November to write is using NaNoWriMo for something for which it wasn't intended. I have to assume that any novel coming out of NaNoWriMo sucks before going through massive amounts of editing. So in the end, is it really worth it? The only thing I can see an established writer using NaNoWriMo for is to try and work past a dry spell of creativity(Again, all the more reason to be year round).

There were some good arguments in favor of the competition, but not enough to sway my opinion, but enough to soften my opinion of it. In the end we'll all have to agree to disagree. Though, I will ask if we can all agree on one thing. Typing "NaNoWriMo" is incredibly awkward. :)

NaNoWriMo Sucks

That's right. I said it. NaNoWriMo sucks and I mean it. So what has NaNoWriMo done to draw my ire you ask? Well, what hasn't it done? It sucks up the time of talented writers, I don't see how it accomplishes the sponsor organization's goal, and it's acronym is incredibly difficult to type.

After spending a paragraph bashing the thing, let me slow down and explain what NaNoWriMo is. For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It is an imaginary competition where all the entrants try to write a 50,000 word novel in 1 month. If you do that, you win the imaginary prize. If you think it sounds silly, I swear I'm not making it up.

The way to win NaNoWriMo is by writing 50,000 words by midnight on November 30. Every year, there are many, many winners. There are no "Best Novel" or "Quickest-Written Novel" awards given out. All winners will get an official "Winner" web badge and a PDF Winner's Certificate.

The purpose of NaNoWriMo is to get people to write. Just write something.

NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen. Pies will be eaten at amazing rates. Alfalfa will be harvested like never before. And novels will be written in a month.

Part of the reason we organize NaNoWriMo is just to get a book written. We love the fringe benefits accrued to novelists. For one month out of the year, we can stew and storm, and make a huge mess of our apartments and drink lots of coffee at odd hours. And we can do all of these things loudly, in front of people. As satisfying as it is to reach deep within yourself and pull out an unexpectedly passable work of art, it is equally (if not more) satisfying to be able to dramatize the process at social gatherings.

So getting back to my issues with the competition. The most annoying thing is the distraction it becomes for my favorite writers. Every year this dreaded contest draws the attention of my favorite bloggers to NaNoWriMo and away from their blogs. I enjoy their blogs, and I don't enjoy 50,000 word novels that are hastily thrown together in less than 5 weeks. On top of taking away my favorite high quality reading lists, I don't think NaNoWriMo helps those writers much either. The purpose of NanoWriMo is to get people to write, but bloggers already write on a regular basis. So why are bloggers shutting down one writing operation to open up another writing operation. Each about as useful as the other in terms of improving writing skills. I just don't get it.

If someone were to defend NaNoWriMo, I suppose they would say that it encourages writers to write and finish their novels. This is where I start questioning the whole premise of the competition. Really? A writer needs to be encouraged to write his or her story? Anyone who needs an imaginary competition to start writing may want to consider another line of business. Most writer's I know have a story inside of them just aching to be told. They have to write it. They can't not write it. You'd have to pull the pen from their cold dead fingers before they'd stop.

That kind of tenacity to write is needed because writing the novel is just the first step. You now have the hours of self editing and rewriting to go through. Then the professional editing comes. Then the marketing of your book. You have all those inquiry letters to write and rejection notices to read. So, if a writer has to be encouraged to do the first step - The fun one - what are the chances they'll ever get around to the rest of the steps?

Finally, I want to reiterate what I said before. NaNoWriMo is a pain in the butt to type. I'm serious. Try and type it 3 times in a row. It's hard. Map it out. Here's the button combination to properly write NaNoWriMo on a qwerty keyboard.

1. Hold left Shift
2. (N) Right Index,
   
3. Let go of left shit
4. (a) left pinky
   
5. Hold Left Shift
6. (N) Right Index
7. let go of left shift
8. (o)Right Ring
9. Hold Right shift
10. (W)Left Ring
11. let go of shift
12. (r) right index
13. (i) left middle
14. Hold Left Shift
15. (M) right index
16. let go of shift
17. (o) right ring

Wow! 17 steps just to write their *abbreviation*. You also are alternating shift buttons between hands. That is incredibly awkward. I know it seems like a petty thing to complain about, but they should've known better. When you're a online writing competition, you would think you'd make it easy for online writers to talk about you.

Oh yeah, and one more thing about their name. It's not even accurate. The National Novel Writing Month is actually an international event. So it should be InNoWriMo. Which actually is slightly easier to type since your left pinky doesn't have to leave the shift key between typing the 'I' and the 'N'.

Now, not everything about NaNoWriMo is bad. Some authors enjoy the intensity of trying to write a first draft in a month. Other's also like the interaction with other author's in middle of writing a novel. So why not make those tools available all year round? Let author's register the day they start and then give them 30 days to finish. They then can intereact with other author's who are writing all year long. Nobody has to wait for November anymore.

Here's way to improve it. I do not believe that the problem with the modern publishing industry has anything to do with the lack of crappy novels being pushed out. If anything, it's the lack of people reading good novels. Competing with movies, video games, and comic books is hard. However, if you can get a person to read that one book that they really like, you can turn that person into a life long bookworm. I say we need a competition that increases and encourages readers, not writers. Put in crass economic terms, we need to increase demand, not supply.

Here's my idea for a new yearly competition. Instead of challenging people to write 50,000 crappy words, challenge them to read 500 pages of any novel or novels they so choose. Add in some rules. For instance, if you're reading a paperback you have to read 2 pages to count as 1 hard cover page. This competition virtually guarantees that all participants who "win" would have to read at least 1 novel and maybe part of another. Now how sweet would that be? Readers can share what books they read. Part of the requirements for "winning" could be that you have to write a 250+ word review of what you read. You know, to prove to your fellow readers that you actually did it.

Finally, the last thing I would change about NaNoWriMo if I had the power to do so would be the name. I would rename National Novel Writing Month to be International Novel Month - abbreviated INM and pronounced "In Me". This has a number of improvements. First of all, the abbreviation is easier to type. You can use just hold the left shift down the entire time, type with the other hand(Middle-Index-Middle), and then let go of the shift key. 5 steps only instead of 17. Also, Saying it requires fewer syllables, 2 instead of 4. The name also lends flexibility. Whether the competition is a writer's or reader's competition, the name still makes sense. Finally, it reflects the fact that it's international not just national.

Anyways, if this post convinces just one person to skip participating in NaNoWriMo and instead work on their blog or plotting out a good novel, then my goal will have been accomplished. I know I'm probably on the other side of popular opinion so, please, feel free to flame away in the comments.

Nothing New Today

I've been ill the last few days. I haven't been reading, writing, working - not even moving for a couple of those days. Anyways, this is just a long convoluted way to say that posting will be light this week while I try to catch up with everything. Originally I intended to write something cranky about nanoWriMo. Look for that at the end of this week. In the meantime, please take the poll from last week. I'm still running it and would love to hear your opinions.

Reviewing Blog Fiction (100th Post!)

Congratulations to me. This is my 100th published post on this, the Blog Fiction blog. It also marks 1 month short of a year that I've maintained this site. In that time, I'm proud of the things I've done to help promote the genre. I've maintained the Blog Fiction forums. I created the Blog Fiction Widget. I've maintained the list of all the blog fiction sites that I know about. I've also tried to keep up with all of the latest blog fiction news.

Among the things I haven't done is do actual reviews of blog fiction writings. Sure, I've critiqued site layouts, but I've never critiqued people's blog fiction writing. Even in the case of the Ten-Sided disaster, I only critiqued their lack of working together - not their individual writing styles. I never did literary critiques because I never felt qualified to do it. I don't have any formal writing training. I've also never been published in anything. It felt presumptuous of me to think that I could offer advice to other writers.

So, that is the thing I wanted to ask everyone. Would you really be interested in my opinions on the writing of any blog fiction sites. Really, my only qualifications to offer reviews are the following:

• I have a blog about Blog Fiction
• I've read a lot of blog fiction and even tried to write some myself.
  

So, is that enough for you to take my word that maybe a story is too slow paced. Or to say that the character's of a blog fiction don't feel real. Please take the poll to the left and let me know. Also feel free to leave a comment to let me know why you voted the way you do. I'm going to leave the poll up for a while.

In the meantime, I feel like celebrating my 100 milestone South Park style.
("For reviews, against reviews, WHO CARES! 100 posts.")



UPDATE: This is how this post was supposed to look. Blogger really screwed up my javascript so you only saw about 1/5 of the post earlier.

Common Blog Widgets I can't stand

Sometimes it feels like a memo goes out once a week to all bloggers that says, "any sidebar space not filled with a widget will be confiscated". I say this because so many bloggers fill up their website with some of the silliest widgets and functions. That alone wouldn't annoy me. The problem is that so many of them they choose to fill their sites with are either annoying, distracting, useless, or all of the above. Here is a list of some of the most egregious offenders.

*disclaimer* The opinions below are that of DustinM alone. They are his personal opinion reached by years of reading blogs, and not the result of any type of market research or polling. So don't go pulling any of these widgets off your website just because of what's said here. Pull them because they deserve to be strapped onto a rocket and aimed directly at the sun.

Showing location of the site's readers
So let me get this straight. Of all the things you think your reader should know, you thing they need to know where each other are from? Sometimes not even all of them, just the most recent visitors. Great! I think it's awesome that people from Mongolia and Peru read your website, but I really don't care. I just want to read your article about the "10 best firefox add-ons".

Pictures of readers
Here's a weird stalker-ish inducing widget. I don't know what the logic here is. Apparently, not only do I get to know where everyone is from, but now I get a picture of what they look like. Personally, I think these last 2 widgets were the invention of the mafia trying to find guys in the witness protection program:
"Hey Vinnie, ain't dat da guy dat sold out Uncle Tony to the feds"?
"Yeah, yeah that's the scumbag. How'd ya find 'em?"
"Well, I needed to change the brakes on my '08 Taurus and found this blog about how to do dat. Apparently, our guy needed to do the same ting... 'bout 5 hours ago."
"Does the site have one of those annoying widgets that tell you where everyone's from?"
"uh... yeah, says right here. Mount Claire, California"
"Excuse me while I go make a phone call".

8,000 directory backlinks
Yeah, blog directories are great for creating incoming links. Unfortunately, some insist on a backlink to the directory. That's fine, but why would you put that in your sidebar? Nobody is going to want to see those. Put them in your footer where they belong so they can be promptly ignored by your readers.

PageRank Bragging
I am so thrilled that google thinks your website is a '4'. For the .05% of your visitors that give a rats ass what your pagerank is, now know what it is. Not because you display it like a badge of honor, but because the .05% of the people that care about it already have the google toolbar that tells them the exact same thing. And the toolbar told them much quicker because they didn't have to sift through 2 or 3 screens of directory backlink images.

Anything that flashes so fast and bright it causes epileptic seizures.
I don't care if it's a banner, widget, Advertisement, or the freakin' pope. If the damn thing makes my screen look like a vegas slot machine I'm going to click off your page faster than you can say "boss over shoulder".

Annoying popup ads on keywords
If anything destroys the internet. It's not going to be a lack of net neutrality or email spammers that do kill it. It is the unholy troll that thought to combine annoying "pop under" ads with "preview pics". If you don't know, a "pop under" ad is where the ad software goes through a site and underlines certain keywords with a dotted line. If a reader clicks that word they will be taken to the paid sponsor's site. That alone is not too annoying. However, some genius decided the dotted line wasn't enough. Now anytime I move my mouse over a link some flashy picture pops up OVER the text I'm trying to read. It turns my casual reading into a boxing match:
"shit, I can't read that text now. There's no close button. Oh I'll just move over this ad. Ah... now I can read it... Time to scroll down the page. Why can't I scroll? Oh my mouse is over the picture. I'll just move it and... crap now it's over another ad... Finally, I finished scrolling. Hey, check out that link, I think I'll just... fuck! it's covered up now!"

Latest comments box takes up an entire side
Look, you can have a widget that displays your latest comments. I think that's cool. But keep in mind that it's not something worth taking up an entire page worth of a sidebar. 90% of all blog comments are along the lines of one of the folling:

• Dude, that is so true.
• You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
• Luv your site. U should check out mine at http ://www . my-super-dupersexy-girl-friends-acting-naughty . com

Also, if you're a female blogger, you'll have this added gem.

• We should so hook up!
  

You really don't want those things clogging up more than a tiny space in your sidebar, do you?

Blogroll to unrelated topics
Links are great. Your site can't possibly contain everything a reader needs to know about a topic. That's what wikipedia is for. So, you offer links to similar websites. Or, at least, they SHOULD be similar. If your site is about home gardening, why the hell do you have links to sites about buying real estate? Just because some yahoo offers to exchange links with you doesn't mean you have to do it. Exchange links with relevant sites or at least maintain 2 different blogrolls. One labeled, "Useful links" the other labeled, "Stupid links".

Hit Counter
It is TWO-Freaking-thousand-and-EIGHT people! Come. on! 1995 called, they want their widget back! Nothing says "I can fake being popular" like a hit counter. This widget was useless even when it was new. Sure, this site has 2600 hits, but is that since last week or last year? Or is the site brand new as of yesterday, but some little shit hit refresh on his browser 2500 times. Thanks to a lack of timeframe and easy manipulation this widget tells your readers nothing about your site. Please! let this widget go to heaven where he can reunite with his grandma and grandpa, websites with frames and java applets.

By the way, sorry about all the swearing. I normally try to keep things PG, but these annoying widgets really get to me. What about you? What blogging widgets make you swear?

Determining your posting schedule

A couple weeks ago I wrote a column giving advice on how to avoid abandoning your blog fiction. The very first tip was "Decide on a manageable posting schedule". Reading back, I left out how to determine that manageable posting schedule. Determining your posting schedule is simple. Rather than just haphazardly guesstimating about how many posts you can do, I created a formula to figure out how many posts a week you should do.

It boils down to a simple formula. Look at your life. How many minutes a week do you have to spend on your blog fiction(call this 'T', for Total time)? Subtract the amount of time you need to spend marking and maintaining your site(call this 'M' for Marketing and Maintenance time). Now, Divide that number by the amount of time it takes you to write a single post (call this 'P' for Posting time). What number you have is the number of posts you can realistically make in a week. Formula: Number of posting per week = (T - M) / P. For example, if you have 480 minutes(8 hours) a week to spend on your blog. You intend to spend 1 hour(60 minutes) of that promoting your site. And finally, let's say it takes you 3 hours (180 minutes) to do a post. In the end, it comes to (480 - 40) / 180 = 2.44 posts a week for our imaginary author.

Obviously one would find it difficult to write .44 posts. I would always round down. That way you know what you can almost always accomplish. The worse that can happen is that you'll start getting a backlog of posts and you can take a vacation once in a while. Short post today, but this formula is something I'm going to use the next time I start a blog fiction and thought others might find it useful.

(T - M) / P = N
T = Time to spend on Blog
M = Marketing and Maintence
P = Amount of posting
N = Number of posts per week

September News Roundup

Some Interesting News Bits happening in the Blog Fiction World. Some old, some recent, all of it was news to me in the last month. I know I usually post this on the last or second to last day of the month, but my day job has been reaking havoc on my blogging and reading time.

GGR hiatus
Purhaps the saddest news of the month was the announcement that Giant Girl Rampages is going on hiatus until further notice.

We're not ruling out Melly's eventual return, but we're not making any promises either. We've been working behind the scenes to recruit a new team of writers/illustrators with the time and energy to pick up where we've left off, but dream teams are hard to come by.

New Blog Fiction sites:
There are 2 new sites in the blog fiction list that are still active. Time Traveler blog is one of them. The other is in french-so I THINK it's active.

Lord Likely gave me 500 credits
Three cheers for Lord Likely!!! (Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!) He was kind enough to give me 500 advertising credits for entrecard. If you have an entrecard please go to his site and drop it on him to thank him. (stop and read his site too - it's hilarious for anyone who deosn't mind the "adult" humor)

Muse's Success launch.
It looks like there is another alternative to Web Fiction Guide and Pages Unbound. Muse's Success is still pretty young, but it's mission is ambitious: "create a catalogue of each and every web based novel (or serial) available on the World Wide Web. In addition, we allow our visitors to review stories within our catalogue, and also provide a community in which authors and readers of web based novels can interact and communicate." I'll be watching it to see how it will differentiate itself from the other internet fiction rating sites.

Tech Babe and Jason X meet.
Some interesting developments over at The User Pool. For quite some time, the fictional characters Tech Babe and Jason X have existed quite separately in their own little worlds. They only conversed in the online world by leaving and responding to each other's comments. In recent postings the characters recounted meeting each other in real life. Could this mean there could be some future drama between the two? I don't know. It would be very interesting to see though.

Did I miss anything? Have your own September news? Let me know in the comments.

Peculiar Blog Ficiton How-To Article

I found a peculiar how-to article on Blog Fiction. It gives 5 steps on how to start your own blog fiction. It wasn't peculiar in that there was anything wrong with each step. What was peculiar was the order it had those steps. Summarized, here are the steps:

1. Find yourself a blog-hosting site.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character.
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.
   

Do you see something wrong here? If not, let me rewrite the article as a how-to for writing a book.

1. Find yourself a publisher.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character(s).
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.

Or, how about if you're creating a broadway play.

1. Find yourself a stage.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character(s).
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.

Or how about, creating a movie.

1. Find yourself a video camera.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character(s).
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.

Do you see it yet? The first step listed is most certainly not your first step. Also, if you have any intention of attracting readers, the last step listed, is most certainly not the last thing you should consider. What would be the better order to start a blog fiction? How about this:

1. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
2. Verify a market exists for it and Find it.
   
3. Choose the right character.
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find yourself a blog-hosting site.

There are 2 advantages to using this order instead of the original. The first advantage is that if there is no market for your story you won't find out after it's too late. You won't invest countless hours in creating a blog fiction for the 'smoking man' from the X-Files to only find out that no one really cares about the X-Files anymore.

The second advantage is that it keeps you focused on the important part of writing blog fiction - the writing. You create the world, choose the characters, and write out a plot before doing anything on the internet. Then you can decide what tools you need to write the blog fiction and then figure out which blogging platform best provides those features.

When starting a blog fiction-or any blog for that matter-I can understand why someone would think that the first thing to do is create a blog. It's the first concrete visible step you take; however, if you do it that way your blog will likely fail from a lack of planning. If you don't plan ahead a zillion things can go wrong. You might pick the wrong blogging platform. You may start writing before you're ready. People might find your site before you're ready and ignore it due to lack of content and activity. All of these things you want to avoid.

It is like the ancient advice of SunTsu, "Victorious writers write first and then publish their blog fiction, while defeated writers publish first and then seek to write". Or at least I think he said something like that.

Now Offering Full-Text RSS Feed

For the past couple of weeks I have been trying hard to promote my rss feed. I've put the subscription link in the most visible part of my blog. I've added the instant email subscription widget. I also formatted the heck out of the link and text so that it can go at the top. My efforts were repaid by watching my feedburner subscription rate yo-yo up and down for the last week. I couldn't figure out why.

While looking for something else today, I happened upon an article that might explain why. It said to always offer a full text feed not a partial one. Meaning that your rss feed should include your entire content. At first, I just skipped over the advice mostly because I didn't want to hear it.

The reason I didn't want to hear it is because I've been so afraid of my content ending up on a splog. This is a very real and ever present danger for legitimate bloggers. If you never heard the term "splog" it means a "spam blog". These internet bottom feeders use people's feeds to automatically download content from legitimate sites, and then post it on their own. They create massive, fly-by-night websites, and collect the ad revenue from your content and 1000s of others' blogs. This hurts you because since their websites are so massive, their content may come up first in a google search. Worse still, google can then penalize your blog for not having "original" content. Therefore, to protect my blog's content I didn't publish the full text of my posts. I figured it wasn't that big of a deal for my subscribe's to click over to the website for the full text.

So like I said, I didn't listen to the advice even though the person said even he himself will not subscribe to blogs that offer partial post text. I figured I'd rather protect my content and search rank than cater to such lazy readers. The idea was then pushed to the back of my head. Well it festered for a while and eventually I did a google search to get other people's opinion on full vs. partial feeds. Well, the argument is pretty one sided and is in favor of full feeds. A small sample of what I found: here, here, and here.

Most of the other sites I found were bloggers asking their reader's opinion on if they mind partial feeds. Those comments were usually about 2/3 hated partial feeds, 1/6 didn't care, and the other 1/6 don't use rss feeds. It was while reading those comments that I realized something. I'm making the same mistake that the RIAA (music industry) and MPAA (movie industry) are making right now. I'll explain.

The RIAA, MPAA, and myself we're punishing our customers(in my case, readers) for the crimes of others. The RIAA and MPAA are forcing all this anti-copyright technology on your cd\dvds and digital downloads. All it does is piss off customers who use the content for legitimate purposes, and at most provides a brief speedbump for those who want to use it illegally. Not providing full text feeds provides the same end result. A lot of pain for my readers, and nothing more than a speedbump for A-Hole sploggers.

That all being said. I am now offering a full text rss feed. For those who might miss this post I'm indicating it in the subscribe text that it's now a full feed. So if you like my site, be sure to subscribe. If you don't have an rss reader, you can alternatevely sign up for email notification.

As for protecting my content, I plan on using 2 different tools to try and monitor malicious use of my rss feed. Of course, there is Copyscape which lets you put in a webpage and will spit out any urls that appear to have the exact same content. Also, blogger Kate has an absolutely brilliant tactic to prevent scrapes of your rss fead. I'm not going to quote or summarize. Just go read the article. It's clever, and free.

BTW, This isn't just a meta post. The recommendation extends to anyone who runs a blog fiction site. There really are advantages to allowing the full text. Fans of your site can let recent posts build up and then read at their own leisure - even if not connected to the internet at the time. Hopefully, if your content is liked well enought that someone will subscribe to your blog, they'll also be willing to still visit your site and leave comments on posts that they really like.

One last thing, If anyone knows of anyway to increase my subscription number, I'd love to hear it. Now that I'm getting some traffic I really want to try and convert that to subscribers. Right now I don't know what else to do to promote my feed besides writing good content and making it easy to subscribe. Thanks!

8 Strategies to Avoid Abandoning Your Blog Fiction

Looking across my list of blog fiction sites, I see a lot of abandoned stories. To be clear, I don't mean stories that ended or that have taken a planned hiatus. I mean stories that without any given reason no longer update and never resolved the primary conflict. In my opinion this is the worst thing that can happen to a blog fiction site. If not careful, this can happen even to your brilliant blog fiction.

My best guess is that the authors of these sites experienced either burnout, became disinterested, or died. While I can't help with that last one, I have some ideas and observations on how to avoid the first 2. I've divided these tips into 3 sections. Things to do before starting a blog fiction, after starting, and after become well established.


Before Starting:

1. The first tip, Decide on a manageable posting schedule.
This should be a minimum of your best and worst weeks. If you can usually crank out 4 posts a week except when you're busy, but only 2 when you are busy, then you shouldn't decide on 4 posts a week. I would say only do 2. You'll thank yourself when you're busy.

2. Create a Nice stockpile of posts.
Whatever your posting schedule is, create about a months worth of posts. This buffer will serve you well when you get busy, or need to take a vacation form your blog.

3. Outline, or at least plan, some plots.
While you don't have to plot your entire blog, you should have a good idea of plots, sub-plots, and sub stories to introduce along the way. If it starts to drag, BOOM! drag in one of your sub-plots.

After Starting:
4. Don't post in real-time unless you mean it.
I'm a strong advocate against writing blog fiction in real-time. That means, 1 day in your character's world is the equivalent of a day in your reader's world. However, some people like the idea and thinks it provides a better response from the readers. While true, that means you have to consider one important thing. You can never take a break without explaining why your character hasn't posted in that time. So ask yourself, can you really provide a weeks worth of story all 52 weeks of the year and never take an unexpected break? If not, figure out how to separate your character's time from real-time.

5. Watch out for the "groove" trap.
I know this probably sounds like a weird warning, but it's an important one. What I'm talking about is when you get a sudden burst of creativity. Let's say you usually only do 2 posts a week. In one month though you really get in a "groove", and you start cranking out 5 posts a week creating a HUGE backlog. Now you're tempted to up the number of posts you do. Should you do it? Probably not. Remember, there's a reason you chose the posting schedule you're on. Take the extra time instead to do some editing, promote the site, or heck! even take a break! Bursts of creativity can be followed by bursts of apathy.

6. Take planned breaks
I seriously doubt anyone can do something as fun and "optional" as a blog fiction 365 days a year. Take a planned break. Announce it ahead of time so your readers aren't shocked. Also announce when you'll be back - and make sure that you do come back! Even if you're writing in real-time, try to make up excuses why posting would be cut off for a week or 2. For example, every year for 2 weeks your character visits Aunt what's-her-face who doesn't have an internet connection.

After Well Established:
7. Don't be afraid of unplanned breaks
I mean it. Don't be afraid to just say ENOUGH! It's perfectly acceptable to say.

My brother is missing, my spouse has explosive diaria, my kids have lice, and the dog keeps running away. I don't have any more time to spend on this stupid blog, or to waste time reading comments from my whiny readers about how my posts never go up on time! GO. TO. HELL!!!! ... I'll be back in 1 month, see you all then.

Well, except for that last sentence, maybe it isn't acceptable to say all that, but you get the point. Give a reason why you're taking a sudden break, apologize, and announce when you'll be back - and make sure to be back.

8. End it
Yes, you heard me. You never know, it could just be time to end your masterpiece. If you've been writing as a character for a while, most of the plot points you outlined have been used up, and no new ones are coming to mind, face it, the story is over, it's time to end it.

Now, I'm not saying you should end your story Farscape style by vaporizing your main characters. Rather, tie up some loose ends and have your character announce they will no longer write a diary. You could always come back and do a "sequel" - different blog, same character.

So there are my 8 tips to keep prevent burnout. Does anyone have any other tips that I might have missed?

I'm dumping BlogRush

Back in February I did a review of Blog Rush. I said that it probably won't get you much traffic, but couldn't hurt. Well, today I take it back. I can't even get blog rush to give traffic to this blog. Since March 14th, I've only managed to get 13 visitors via BlogRush. The bounce rate of those visitors is 85%. 13 visitors in 6 months is not worth the screen real-estate or additional quarter second load time that it adds.

I'm not the only one dumping blogrush either. A quick google search reveals a lot of dissatisfaction with the widget:
http://www.qualitynonsense.com/82/blogrush-sucks/
http://www.chrisguthrie.net/win-1-of-2-free-ads-that-replace-my-blog-rush-widget/
http://optempo.com/2008/01/14/blogrush-blogflush-a-blogrush-sucks-update/

If you want a contrast of how dismal of a statistic that is, I've gotten 23 clicks from the blog fiction widget just since July. That's when it was still mostly in beta. I've replaced it with another widget scheme that's supposed to bring in additional traffic. That scheme is Entrecard. I've only had for a short time, but I can already tell that it's a lot more promising. I think it could really work for a blog fiction site as well. I'll give a fuller review when I have more experience with it.

Mobile Friendly Websites

About a month ago I talked about the need for an alternative to a laptop that can be used to read blog fiction sites. One thing that I started using is my cell phone. It's something that I always have and is usually in an area that offers "mobile" internet access. What's neat about it is that if I find some down time I can always whip it out read the latest posts from my favorite sites. That's the advantage to using a cell phone to read blog fiction.

However, there are also disadvantages. Text is really small on a cell phone. Depending on your location and service, "Mobile internet" isn't necessarily available. The biggest problem is the small screen can really screw up the layout of a blog. It is that last disadvantage that brings me to the point of this post.

Using my phone, the EnV VX9900 from LG,, I went through the entire blog fiction list and rated how easy each site is to use on my cell phone. I have 3 categories.

1. Navigable: This is the most favorable rating. This means that not only can you read the latest posts, but you can easily navigate through old posts or even start back at the beginning and read the whole thing on your phone.
2. Readable: This is a "satisfactory" rating. It's easy to read the latest posts. Good for catching up on a blog that you haven't read for a bit. However, it's not easy or maybe not even possible to navigate to older posts. Therefore you can only catch up with the sites you're already reading.
3. Unusable: The worse rating. There are 2 ways that a blog fiction site can get on this list. The first way is if the text is hard or impossible to get to and read. An example would be sifting through 200 lines of links and ads before getting to any content. The other way to end up on this list is if a blog is "readable", but is no longer updating. If a blog is finished and you can only read the latest posts than really, it's not going to be very readable at all.
   

Obviously, not everyone's phone is going to be like mine. That means this list isn't the final say. It's only a survey of these sites according to what my phone can view. I would love to know how some of these sites look on other people's phones.

One other thing before I get to the results. If you're a blog fiction author and your blog is on the "unusable" list, don't over react. Don't start optimizing your site for cell phone traffic yet. Especially not if it's going to harm the layout and functionality of site for normal visitors. Right now, I consider this list for readers who might be stuck somewhere boring (an opening music act, nephew's T-Ball game, or niece's dance recital) and need some entertainment. Know that your entertainment could be only a cell phone away. I'll be issuing updates to this list as needed.

Navigable
Action Figure Diary*
Yanni's Block
The Adventures of Daniel Walters
Curly Gibson

Readable
Anonymous Lawyer
Captain's Log
Undead Man Blogging
The Professional Pet
Peep This Diary
Mexican Year
Renal Failure
Fate's Acquittal
Space Haggis
Giant Girl Rampages
Charlotte
Fake Steve Ballmer
Death's Blog

Unusable
Ten-Sided
Wilf's World
Atyllah The Hen
Confessions of a Blogger
Transplanted Life
Lord Likely
Fleet Commander
Diary of a Killer
Up and Onward: Confessions of a Super Hero
The Cranky Product Manager
Horton's Folly
The User Pool
Under Odysseus
The Star Islanders
The Darth Side
Blog Paige

*Action Figure Diary was easy to read and navigate. However, the comic pictures were condensed to a point where I couldn't make it out. I suspect that not everyone will have that problem with their phone.

Ways to Get Your Readers Caught Up

My post about a "Catch Up" button got a few comments suggesting other ways new readers of a blog fiction to catch up on past story. I thought that the ideas were important enough to pull out of the comments and into a blog post.

Catch Up label
This was already discussed.

Character Guides
One way of getting your readers up to speed is to have a page of character descriptions. That way, with every scene readers can click over to learn about a character mentioned in the latest post. That way someone new to the story can jump right in and know who everyone is.
See Melly Mills, or The User Pool for examples.

Plot Summary in sidebar
A lot of people will put a summary of what's going on in the sidebar. The description would be something akin to the back cover of a book. Just a little intro so that reader's aren't completely lost.
Just a few examples: Wilf's World, Horton's Folly, Charlotte.

Plot Summary in separate page.
This is something that I haven't seen used in practice. I'm not sure why. It would seem to be very effective. Every time something significant happens a writer could just add a line to the summary page so that a reader can get up to speed quickly and directly.

Constant Link Back to previous events
This strategy of keeping your readers up to speed is something unique to the blog format. A mention of a story or character could have a link back to an old post about that story or introduction of that character. For readers who are constantly up to date, they can just read right over the text. For those who haven't read every word you've ever written still have a chance to get up to speed with the plot. A log of different sites use this, just a few examples are:
The User Pool, Terran Resistance, and Death's Blog used it.

Change Your writing style
This is something that Odin Soli pointed out when talking about the "catch up" button. When you're writing a serial, you must always keep that in mind and your writing should reflect it.

Episodic scriptwriting is full of tricks for mid-streaming viewers, since TV shows and other serials deal with this problem all the time. Something we did in a journalism class once -- watch a soap opera episode, then write down as much backstory as we could. It was amazing to discover how much we'd learned about the setting, characters, conflicts, etc. from a single episode.

The point is, if you write something correctly your reader's won't have to spend much time catching up.

I've listed all the methods I've seen and can think of for getting reader's of a blog fiction "caught up", but which way is the best? I don't know the answer to that. I don't even know if there is an answer to that. I think that they all work. I haven't seen enough examples of any of them to say that one is better than the other. Also, there is no reason a writer can't use more than one or all of these strategies to get new readers up to speed. For now, I would say use whichever strategy makes sense to you to get your new readers up to speed. Just make sure that you have a strategy.

Blog Fiction Terms

I've already done several posts defining the term blog fiction - including my final definition. I also explained why I call it Blog Fiction instead of fictional blogs. Those are just a couple of terms that may sound foreign to someone who is new to online fiction. I thought that I would use this post to go over some words and phrases related to online fiction that haven't quite made it into Webster's.

Blog Fiction
Serialized literature published to a blog that is written in a diary format. Often, but not necessarily, the fictional writer of the blog will interact with it's readers. See my previous post, Blog Fiction Defined.

Fictional Blog
Blog Fiction is often, incorrectly, referred to as a "fictional blog". See my post, Blog Fiction Vs. Fictional Blog for more details.

Fictional Blogger
An Imaginary Blogger. The imaginary characters who "write" Blog Fiction.

Blogfic
Short for Blog Fiction.

Internet Fiction
Any and all fiction published on the internet. This includes all blog fiction, fiction blogs, and any other website publishing literature to the internet.

Fiction Blog
Blog that contains fiction. This includes short stories, serials, or any other type of fiction prose.

Blog Novel
A term that, while not coined by, but redefined by the people at Making Melly Mills. We agree that the term makes sense as a synonym for a narrative blog fiction. Some people use it to refer to any novel written or published to a blog.

Blovel
Short for Blog Novel

Blook
The LuLu Blooker prize committee defines a blook as:

blook (bluk), n. A printed and bound book, based on a blog (cf. web log) or web site;

Blog Fiction Vs. Fictional Blog

A lot of the time, people will use the terms "blog fiction" and "fictional blog" interchangeably. I admit that I've been guilty of doing this on several occasions. The problem is that referring to a blog fiction site as a "fictional blog" is a misnomer. To make my point, let's look at the definition for fictional given by the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Entry Word:
fictional
Function:
adjective

Text: not real and existing only in the imagination - the events in the horror movie seemed so real to some fans that they could not believe that the whole thing was fictional

Something that's "fictional" means that it is not real. As in a fictional character, a fictional actor, or a fictional tv show. Using the phrase "fictional blog" would imply that the blog you are talking about isn't real. With the blogs I read, that couldn't be further from actuality. When I read Leroy Power's blog, I load it, read it, leave comments, and even link to it. It is just like any other blog that I read. That blog is real. Leroy might be a fictional character, but his blog most certainly is not fictional.

I liken the blog in a blog fiction to the stage of a live theater production. In a play, the characters and setting are fictional, but you wouldn't call the stage they stand on fictional. A blog is like the stage of blog fiction writers. Each one is different, but it's real.

Even though "fictional blog" is a misnomer, it seems more natural to say than "blog fiction" or "blog fiction site" and I think that's why some people use that phrase instead. I am going to try to no longer use the phrase when referring to a blog fiction site. The only time I'll use it is if I'm reading a story that refers to a blog that doesn't exist. That would be a fictional blog.

I know that this vocabulary might put me at odds with some people and websites. For instance, The first two words of Betsy Friedrich's thesis on Blog Fiction was "Fictional Blogs:". Also, Jilliane Hamilton's flocalicious directory uses the phrase fictional blog to describe blog fiction sites. It even coins the word "flog" for short.

Now, I'm not going to start crusading through the internet and demand people change their webpage and urls from fictional blog to blog fiction. However, I will pledge to use the terms correctly from this point on and just hope that others will eventually follow my lead.

Chaos Reigns in World of Online Fiction

I really hope that I'm over reacting, but where the heck is everybody?! I'm not just talking about the dearth of activity on the Blog Fiction Forums. I'm also talking about the lack of forum activity everywhere in the online fiction world. I had a different post planned for today, but I can't ignore something really eerie going on right now. It affects not just Blog Fiction, but all online fiction.

As you know, Pages Unbound closed... and then reopened. Even after reopening though, I haven't seen any new activity on their forums. I don't know if people have started reviewing again (no dates on reviews or any way to list reviews by date published). Over at the Web Fiction Guide forums the only activity for the last 5 days has been a thread for new people to introduce themselves. The editors are still editing, but the visible users seem to be gone. Over at the Novelr forums, the only activity there in 2 weeks has been the mention that Pages Unbound has reopened.

So, I come back to my original question. Where the heck is everybody? I had a couple theories. My first thought was that the holiday weekend distracted everyone(Labor day in U.S.). That theory didn't hold, not every writer is from the United States after all - I would still be seeing participants from the rest of the world. My next theory was that maybe the chaos of people and their kids going back to school was to blame. Again, this theory doesn't hold up. Every school in the world doesn't start their school year around the 1st of September. I then formed a third theory that scared me. "Omigod, did we lose critical mass?" - That hard to define, but easy to recognize property that allows online communities to thrive.

Here's how the theory goes. When pages unbound closed, Web Fiction Guide became the immediate beneficiary. It allowed community reviewing and rating in addition to editor reviews. They added a forum. All of it was easier to use than Pages Unbound too. Pages Unbound even gave a banner ad advertising Web Fiction Guide. With all the activity at Web Fiction Guide I noticed that my forum activity grinded to a halt (Presumably, going to the more active and just as easy to use Web Fiction Guide). As far as I can tell, the same thing might have happened to the NovLounge. Then, web fiction guide forums slowed down a little. Why, I don't know. Maybe it did slow down because of theories 1 and 2. Then, something strange happened. Pages Unbound came back. Now, people don't know where they want their home to be. Now people have to choose which great review site they want to participate in. Internet traffic being the finicky beast it is, chooses neither. Now, the longer both forums remain inactive, the more people that are going to give up and not participate in either. Where as "critical mass" describes a virtuous circle of people creating content, which attracts more users, who create more forum content, which attracts more users... etc. What I'm describing is a vicious circle. People who would be willing to participate are leaving due to inactivity, which leads to more inactivity...

Alexandra Erin used Pages Unbound to create a critical mass of online writers and readers. She created a hub for the 2 groups to connect to each other. I hope that my theory is wrong and there is another explanation for the disappearance of forum traffic - that the critical mass held together during the chaos of the last month. It would be a devastating blow to online fiction to have to try and rebuild that critical mass.

In the end, only time will tell. Maybe everyone went to a different site that I don't know about and is having a hell of a good time. That would be good. If not and the forum traffic doesn't come roaring back, and is instead sparse, then my "chaos reigns" theory would be proven correct, and all will mourn our loss...

Blog Fiction Widget Release

The Blog Fiction Widget is a widget that is meant to help promote blog fiction and bring together the blog fiction community. The widget lists the most recent posts from blog fiction sites. The widget allows a blogger to customize how many posts it lists, it's width, background color, foreground color, and 'family' option. The widget has been tested and verified to work with the firefox webbrowser versions 2 and 3 as well as internet explorer 6 and 7.

If you would like to use the widget for you site, you may take the code and use it at any time. The code is listed in the blog fiction forum (here). It includes a tutorial on how to customize the widget.

If you run a blog fiction site and want your blog fiction to be included in the widget that everyone gets, you have to host the widget on your blog fiction as well. It must be in the sidebar or other prominated spot on your blog to count-no burying it in the footer. Note that your site must be a blog fiction to be included in the widget feed. (See this post for the definition used to determine if your site is a blog fiction)

Once you have the code on your site, send an email to widgetlist (at) blogfiction (dot) org with the subject line "Blog Fiction Widget" and the url to your website in the body. Once it's verified that your site is Blog Fiction it will be added to the feed. After that your site will get the added exposure on all the other blog fiction sites that host the widget. If you run into any trouble with the widget go to the forums for technical support.

As an aside, this blog has 2 versions of the blog fiction widget. It has the version that everybody has at the top. It also has a "full" version that lists all blog fiction sites whether or not they have the widget on their site.

August News Roundup

Some Interesting News Bits happening in the Blog Fiction World. Some old, some recent, all of it was news to me in the last month.

Novelr taking a semi-break
Eli James has let us know of a planned "study break" until December. Unfortunately, that means a lot fewer posts. The online fiction community never seems quite right when we're deprived of Eli's insight.

Pages Unbound is closing down.
In a sad move, Pages Unbound is shutting down. Alexandra Erin didn't have enough time to run the review site and forums. Pages Unbound was a busy, well frequented site, and a great resource for finding quality fiction online. It's absence will leave a huge gap and need. Fortunately, another site has risen to fill that need. Which brings us to the next news bit...

Web Fiction Guide now has forums
In response to the loss of Pages Unbound, the editors at Web Fiction Guide installed a forum. The forum isn't Blog Fiction centric, but covers all online fiction which include Blog Fiction.

Seeing Blog Fiction published
This is really old news, but Undead Man Blogging is working on getting published. Still waiting to hear about Star Islanders being published.

New Blog Fiction
I found 2 new blog fiction sites: Death's Blog which is still active, and BlogPaige which is not.

Unknown Ship, Unknown Planet gone.
Unknown Ship, Unknown Planet has done a disappearing act. One that would make "Life in Bear Country" jealous.

Unannounced Leaves
Unfortunately, there are a lot of blog fiction sites that seem to be taking unannounced leaves.
A while ago, Fleet Commander teased us with a possible comeback. Unfortunately it didn't materialize.
The three Super Hero blogs, of Leroy and Enigma have not had a post since July 8th. Hopefully they weren't defeated by a super villain. Terra is still blogging sporadically.
Peep this Diary also teased us with a comeback. With only 2 posts back in early July and none since, it may have been premature to call it a comeback.

What was news to you this past month?

Blog Fiction Defined

As the chart below shows, my definition of Blog Fiction has narrowed again. I think it is a definition that makes sense and now has a flowchart to help determine if something is "blog fiction". I think that this definition makes sense and keeps the sense that blog fiction is fiction based on the blogging format.

Blog Fiction: (noun) Serialized literature published to a blog that is written in a diary format. Often, but not necessarily, the fictional writer of the blog will interact with its readers.

Looking below, I have compiled a list of the different characteristics and possible iterations of those characteristics. To follow the chart to see where your blog(or any blog with fictional content) lands is easy. Start at the top node. At each node determine which characteristic better describes your blog. If it's an "ebook" go one way, if it's a "serial" go the other. Written as a diary go one way and if not go the other. Keep going until you get to an end point. If the endpoint is orange, then it means the blog is "Blog Fiction". If it is green then it means it's not only "blog fiction", but a "Blog Novel" as well. If no color, then it is something else. I'll be looking forward to all of your comments and thoughts.



Text vs Multimedia
This is the first choice on the chart. Is the fiction in the form of text, music, pictures, or video. If it's text, keep going. If it's anything else, then it's not blog fiction and you can stop. Of course, with the internet any blog can contain all of these elements. To figure out which way to go, figure out which is the primary story driving element. For instance, a blog could be primarily text with a couple pictures thrown into each post, and an occasional video. However, as long as text is driving most of the narration, it is a textual blog and should follow that route.

ebook vs. Serial
This will be the next question. If the entire narrative is delivered and\or written (Update: See Comments for the reasoning behind this phrase being struck) at once, then it's an eBook. It might be published on a blog, but it's still an eBook.

Diary Format Vs. Non Diary
Is the text written like somebodies blog or diary. An entry doesn't have to start out with "Dear Diary" to be considered diary format. However, time and actions will occur between each entry. To be considered a diary format, there should be some indication of how much time has elapsed between each post.

One Author Vs. Many
This should be obvious.

Narrative Vs. Character
I touched on this before. However I wanted to expand on this because I think it's an important characteristic. A Narrative Diary means that you can actual experience a story from the viewpoint of one of the character's diaries. A "Character" diary just gives us insight into a character's thoughts and opinions. It would not include a plot arc in it's posts. Blogs that would be "Character" diaries would be "Fake" blogs like "Fake Steve Jobs" or the blogs at NewsGroper. Also some blogs that are based on an existing character from a movie or blog or narrative blog fiction.

One Character's Diary Vs. Multiple Characters' Diary
Another characteristic that shouldn't require much explanation. Can the readers read more than one of the character's diaries. If yes, then it's "multiple". If there is only one character keeping a diary that we can read, it is "Only one".

There is a one subtle thing to note. If a site has lots of diaries, but all of them are character diaries, I consider each to be their own separate diary to be considered by itself, not a collection of "Multiple" diaries. The reasoning here is that if none of them are narrative than there is no reason you would need to study them together. Each blog could be analyzed and read in a vacuum and it would have no effect on your understanding. A site like Newsgroper is what I'm thinking of when I talk about this exception.

Blog Aware Vs. Non Blog Aware
"Does the fictional person writing the diary interact with his readers?" What it means is, does the person writing the diary acknowledge that it is being written on a blog. Hence, "blog aware". Or could the whole thing very well be transcribed from a personal diary - "non blog aware".

In either case, I consider both to be Blog Fiction. I admit that a strong argument could be made that even though a writing is written in a diary format, published online as a serial, if it isn't "blog aware" then it's not blog fiction. The argument has a point. Once there are thousands of quality blog fiction sites I will revisit my decision.

Hazy-Time Vs. Real-Time
The distinction is simple. Is one day for the reader one day for the character writing the diary? So if the character doesn't post for an entire week, then that character will have to account for a week's worth of story. Or does the character's story unfold at a different pace than the reader. In that case then the character indicates how much time has passed since the last post.

General Collaberation Vs. Role Play
If there is more than one author, how do they collaborate? Obviously, if there is only one character's diary they would just do a general collaboration as you would in any format. However what if there are multiple diaries, do they all work on multiple characters, or does each one take on just one character?

Blog Fiction Classification Chart Take2

Nothing about this chart has changed. Just hopefully a little less confusing. Just click the picture below to see the larger-readable chart.

Blog Fiction Classification Chart Draft

I've completed the rough draft of my attempt to chart out online fiction and where blog fiction belongs on it. The different properties are listed on a previous post. The first branch determines if the blog uses text or multimedia for it's primary outfit. If it's not text, then it's out of my league.

One other thing to note. I use the phrases "blog aware" and "non blog aware". I combined the properties "Interaction" and "non-story interaction" since they were describing the same thing. And that was "Does the fictional person writing the diary interact with his readers?" What it means is, does the person writing the diary acknowledge that it is being written on a blog. Hence, "blog aware". Or could the whole thing very well be transcribed from a personal diary - "non blog aware".

Please leave any comments and suggestions about the chart. As long as there aren't any major changes resulting from my reader's observations, I'll be posting a color-coded chart either tomorrow or monday. The colors will indicate which makes sense to me to call blog fiction. Also, which makes sense to call something else.

Performance Writing

No, the title to my post is not referring to an Olympic sport that I'd like to see. I'm referring to the fact that writing blog fiction is just as much a performance as it is writing. Sure you have all the traditional writing elements to worry about: plot, character arc, pacing, etc... But with Blog Fiction there is an added curve ball. Depending on your format, comments and others' blog posts(if more than one author) could throw a writer's best laid plans under the bus.

Over in the forums I responded to a post asking what people like about Blog Fiction. One thing I mentioned was,

Multiple authors working on the same story blending the distinction between writing and performing.

After doing some thinking, I now realize what a dumb thing that was to say. A blog fiction does not need multiple characters or authors to blend the distinction between writing and a performance. Even a standard blog fiction(one diary, one character) enters performance the moment they allow comments. Two examples of just that happening.

Last week it looked like the writer's over at Giant Girl Rampages tried to get their audience to help the main character, Melly, figure out Dr. Crisp's code talk. The diary made it clear that Melly was not getting something that was quite clear to the audience.

"Strictly closed. The only way a person might hear what's going on would be if they happened to be located 18 feet off the ground, just outside that open window." It was like he was speaking in code, I thought, but I was just too tired to figure out the message.

"I have a math exam for you, Melly," he said, handing me a few sheets of paper. "I'll be by later to pick up your answers, on my way to the school board meeting, in my big empty truck."

I took the papers and nodded. I wanted to ask Doc if he'd come up with a way for me to attend the meeting, like he said, but I'm sure he'd have told me about it if he had.

Fortunately, an astute reader helped Melly out. She then stowed away in the van so that the story could continue. I'm not really sure what the writer's would've done if none of it's readers helped Melly figure out Dr. Crisp's "code". Would they have had Melly miss the board meeting? Or would some deus ex machina fallen out of the sky and clonk her on the head allowing her to decipher Dr. Crisp's "code". I'm not sure what they would've done, but the point is, they had to plan for it.

Jason X over at the User Pool has some very engaged readers and commenters. Some have even taken to giving Jason advice on helping him out of some of his predicaments. Advice that Jason has been known to incorporate into his story. Well, reading through is archives, I do believe that one of his more observant readers nearly ruined a clever storyline for him.

[Warning: Spoiler Alert!]
In the story, Jason thinks he's being framed for a murder. He reveals this in a Friday post. The names of characters and some of the circumstances are very similar to the movie, Basic Instinct. There are no further posts until tuesday. On that day it's revealed that someone was using the Basic Instinct plot to play a practical joke on Jason, but not before Jason really twists in the wind with stress and worry that he's about to get arrested.

Here's the problem. Back on friday one of his more astute readers commented on the similarities between his situation and Basic Instinct. As smart as the character is, after reading that comment he should've been able to figure out that it was a practical joke. Also, it kind of ruined the suspense for the readers who never saw, or don't remember the details of Basic Instinct (like moi). We were able to realize something is up. So, at best, the innocent comment ruined the suspense, and at worse, caused a small plot hole. Jason did acknowledge the comment in the tuesday post, but the story didn't seem to be affected by it. (My guess is that he already had the post written and didn't have time to rewrite the whole thing and just allowed the small plot hole)

Those two examples were enough for me to realize that almost all blog fiction is a written performance, not just the multiple character\author blogs. In both cases the writer's have had to react to their readers in some way. It would seem that all blog fiction blends the distinction between writing and performing if they allow, and respond to, comments.

Laptop alternatives

Well, the honeymoon is over. I'm back to work and now, and back to blogging. I'm catching up on all the active blogs like Wilf's, big melly, and fate's acquittal, etc. etc. All of which I was already behind on before I'd even left. It was nice to see that the forums were used somewhat while I was gone. Gotta build a community after all. I have to admit as much fun as the wedding and honeymoon were, I missed blogging somewhat. (didn't miss work one iota, however)

I did some reading while I was gone. I read the first half of the first book of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Novels. It is awesome and I can't believe that I ever posed as a scifi fan before reading it - Highly recommended. I also finished a novel that I'd started a while ago, Jack McDevit's Odyssey which is the penultimate novel in his Academy series of books. I don't think I'll be picking up any of the prequels or sequels - not recommended.

While reading blog fiction is fun, it's nice to once in a while take a break and read some dead tree published books. Betsy Friedrich mentioned the same thing in the conclusion of her thesis(pdf). After reading all that text on a screen it was a welcomed diversion to open up a book and read it on her bed. Reading all that text on screen can get wearing. Here are some other advantages books have over reading online with a laptop.

A book is more portable than a laptop
A book doesn't require a recharge
A book can go places a laptop cannot, like a beach or direct sunlight.
If on a flight, I can read a book during takeoff or landing. I'd get thrown off the flight if I left my laptop on.
A book is easier to hold than a laptop

I think one thing that might be holding back online fiction and blog fiction is a device to read it that's better than a laptop. Sure, if you want to leave comments and such, a laptop is more suitable, but if you're laying out on the beach, or sitting in bed, a laptop is not easy or convenient. While impressed with the leaps Amazon's Kindle has made, I'm not fully convinced that that is the device that people would use to read blog fiction - not when it's charging you monthly fees to read something you can get for free on your laptop. (although, I must admit that it's features could usher in the era of e-books)

A more suitable device for reading online fiction is something that is needed. Spending a week reading books instead of laptops has made this need obvious. I'll be searching the internet and watching the news reports. I'd also be interested in hearing some of your thoughts on laptop alternatives.

It's good to be back!

Other Sites to Check out

By the time you read this I'll be married and half way to Mexico. For the next 6 nights, 7 days I won't be anywhere near a computer or cell phone. I'm taking a leap of faith that everything goes well. So, this definitely won't be updated for a week and I won't even be in the forums.

In the meantime, You may want to check out some these other sites.

Making Melly Mills
This is the "making of" site for the people that bring us the Giant Girl Rampages Blog Fiction. You can find news and commentary there. They also discuss online fiction, things that they're trying. It's a good source of information for someone who wants to see just what it takes to write and publish a "blog novel".

Novelr
Novelr writes about "blooks" in general. He always has interesting insights in the online fiction genre. There's also helpful tips for internet authors. Go check it out, you won't waste your time.

Pages Unbound
More than just a directory of web novels, it is a gathering place for readers. You can rate and review your favorite web fiction. You can also find web fiction sites.

Blog Fiction Forums
Also check out the Blog Fiction forums. Hear from a few other Blog Fiction authors. Ask questions, answer others' questions, or just hang out. The forums were set up for you, the Blog Fiction community.

Finally, I'd like to say thanks for all the congratulations and good lucks comments. If any of you would like to give me a wedding gift, I have a request. As your wedding present to me, find one of your favorite blog fiction sites, whether it's active or not, and send the author a fan letter. In it be sure to tell them how much you enjoyed it and why. It can be delivered via email, or just a long comment on their site.

You would be amazed how much of a morale boost it is for an author- who might be feeling discouraged- to get fan mail. It's invigorating to know that, not only are you being read, but it's being enjoyed. Nothing would please me more than to come back from Mexico and find a more energized community of blog fiction writers.

See you all in a week!

Classifying Blog Fiction

Something that I've been struggling with is how to define "Blog Fiction". But something occurred to me. Creating a word and then trying to define it is completely backwards. First you develop a concept, and then you name it.

Therefore, let's start with the most broad definition possible of "Blog Fiction":

Any site that uses blog software to publish fiction to the internet.

Now that I have a broad definition. I'll list all of the different characteristics I've seen on these fiction blogs. Once we have a list of characteristics, then it will make sense to give a name to blogs that have certain characteristics in common. Once I've done that, We can then compare my work to the work done by others(see Blog Fiction Typology). So first, the different characteristics of blogs with fiction.

Written word, Multimedia, both
Using my broad definition, a blog that posts fictional movies would be considered. Same thing is true if it posted podcasts. So first characteristic is whether or not the story is told primarily through the written word or multimedia(audio and video). Obviously there will be those that use both. In that case I'd just classify it under whichever one is the primary device.

Diary Format Vs. Non Diary Format
Does the blog tell it's story using the format of someone's diary, or does it use a more traditional 1st, or 3rd person point of view.

Serial
Is the story delivered all at once, or is it delivered a bit at a time. I.E. A Serial story vs and ebook.

Number of Character Diaries
If the story is written in "diary" format, how many character's diaries are we able to read? I think just "one" or "more than one" will be sufficient for classifying.

Interaction
If there are more than one character's in the story, How do they interact? Only through the story, or do they leave "in character" comments on each other's blog\postings.

Number of Authors
How many people are involved in the project. Again, is it all one author, or more one?

Author Collaboration
If there are more than one authors, how do they collaborate? Do they all work on a single character or multiple characters, or does each one take on just one character.

Non "Story" interaction
Does the character interact with the outside world outside of their diary? For instance, does the author or the character, respond to comments. Other examples might be, does the character visit other blogs and leave comments.

Real-Time vs. Hazy Timeline
This is something that the GGCT and I have been discussing. I won't go into the advantages and disadvantages of either one. The distinction is simple. Is one day for the reader one day for the character writing the diary? So if the character doesn't post for an entire week, then that character will have to account for a week's worth of story. Or does the character's story unfold at a different pace than the reader. In that case then the character indicates how much time has passed since the last post.

Narrative Vs. Character
This characteristic is a little harder to define. A narrative would be where the blog story could stand alone and still be a complete story. A character blog would be a blog where a character from another story lends their perspective, but depends on an outside source. That outside source could be a book, movie, tv show, or even a narrative blog fiction.

Now that I have a list of all the characteristics of a Blog with fictional content, I can make a chart or graph laying out all the different possible combinations. Then we can all discuss the different nomenclature. Unfortunately, this will likely have to wait until after my honeymoon. In the meantime, are there any other characteristics that I missed that should be included? If so, let me know in the comments.