Another Blog Fiction Thesis in the Works

Once upon a time in 2005, a smart, forward-thinking individual known as Betsy Friedrich decided to write a term paper about Blog Fiction.  A year later she got approval to expand that term paper into a thesis.  She read numerous amounts of blog fiction and interviewed lots of writers.  A year later she delivered to the blogosophere the Torah of Blog Fiction, a pdf version of her thesis.  It described in detail trends, commonality, and the challenges of Blog Fiction.  The thesis had a big influence on my thinking of Blog Fiction.  Her "contained story" category of Blog Fiction is what I call a Blog Novel.

That was 3 years ago last month.  Considering that the thesis was probably finished before that, that means that the thesis is now going to 3.5 years old.  In Internet years, that's ancient.  Three and a half years might not sound ancient, but think this.  When the thesis was released, twitter was still in it's infancy and facebook had just started letting non-college students sign up for their site.  In other words, the thesis is starting to get old.  It references several sites that either no longer exist or have been abandoned.

Fortunately, another smart, forward-thinking individual has come to our rescue.  Emma Pooka is now doing research into Blog Fiction for her Doctorate.  She's even been kind enough to make her Research Proposal available.  I'll be looking forward to reading her thought and a promised Blog Fiction of her own.  You can read her blog now and hear her early thoughts now.