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.

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.