Horton's Folly is Back

I wasn't planning on doing a post today, but I found a reason to put up a quick note. I noticed that Horton's Folly is back from his trip to the mental institute that he went to last August. Actually, he's been back for more than a month and a half. I just haven't been keeping up. I'm going to be adding his feed.

I'd also like to take a moment to ask for your help. I've asked before that if you write, read, or find a blog fiction that I don't have listed to let me know about it. I'd also ask that if you know of an inactive blog fiction that becomes active to let me know too. Whether or not you're the writer or just a fan of it doesn't matter. The list of fictional blogs is beginning to get large enough that it's hard for me to keep all of it up to date. Just like finding a new one, to let me know either put it in the forum list, leave a comment, or send me an email. I'd appreciate it.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon Meta

On this lazy sunday afternoon I wanted to make a personal note. When I first started this blog, I just wanted to separate talking about blog fiction from talking about my blog fiction specifically. Since starting this blog I've been having a lot of fun reading other fictional blogs, reviewing them, and seeing what advice other writers have.

I have since set out several goals for my blog here:
Offering objective reviews of some of the blog fiction that I've found.
Search out and find new blog fiction
Observe new and innovative forms of Blog Fiction
Find new ways for writer's to promote their blog fiction.

To that end I've decided to take some time off from my own blog fiction to concentrate on this one. Hopefully, the break will lead to better content on this blog. The first consequence of my decision can already be seen here. I've been able to do more frequent (and hopefully, higher quality) articles.

My shut down is only temporary. Even if I wanted to shut down my own blog fiction permanently to only do this site, I couldn't. I think anyone who writes about a subject should do it or have done a lot of it. Besides, the story of Alex Chou has been bouncing around in my head for way too long to never finish it.

Will we ever read fiction online?

Over the last 10 years we have seen the internet transform or obsolete industries that haven't had any major changes in decades. We've watched magazines and newspapers lose circulation as readers abandoned their dead tree publishing for their online edition. We've watched the RIAA get dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Movie rentals can finally happen online. Youtube like sites could be the replacement for "channel surfing". We can make phone call over the internet. However, inspite of all of this, there is almost no market for reading fiction online.

This fact has lead many to suggest that we'll never read fiction online. Others will claim that we will, but it'll be limited to short stories or flash fiction. Based on the continued failure of electronic book devices to bring us constantly failing ebooks, it's not surprising that many want to throw in the towel on long form online fiction. I, however, am still optimistic about blog fiction someday going mainstream. I think it's only a matter of time until something evolves to the point where we're reading fiction online.

As Novelr points out, it would appear that blog fiction is perfect for short stories and short serials. At least we can all agree on that. You could read a blog fiction just like any other. Subscribe to the feed and when there's a new entry go read it. One entry by itself is easy to read once in a while. The problem is that once we've written a lot of posts, people will want to read our fictional blogs from the start. That can be a lot of on screen text to read "for fun".

It's that last point I think is the only thing holding back online fiction. It is just hard to read a lot of text on the computer - it can strain the eyes. It's a lot easier to read a book in bed than a laptop screen. It's more relaxing to sit in your recliner than your computer chair. So, to get more people to read our fictional blogs we have to ask this question:

How do we easily beam our online content to a device that's affordable, portable, and pleasurable to read?

I think that once that question is answered, online fiction will explode. Think of all the possibilities:

• When we find a new fictional blog that we like, we can just enter the url into our bookreader and go to the beach and read its archives.
• Free ad-supported eBooks. Where the ads are imbedded in the text. Or you can buy the ad-free version.
• ebooks that have a 2.0 version instead of 2nd publishing
• Dozens of other innovations no one has dreamed up yet

As far as "a device that's affordable, portable, and pleasurable to read" I can't really help with that. However, I am a programmer so maybe I can help with "easily beam our online content" part. Another goal I've set for myself is to look up and maybe develop tools that can format our blogs so that they can be read by existing (and crappy) eReaders and other mobile devices. That way, once someone engineers the fictional device described above, we can be ready to fill it with our awesome fictional blogs. Also, maybe, we can help beam content to the existing crap we have today.

Any pointers or suggestions of where to start looking would be more than helpful.

9 tips for a better blog fiction website

I've been reading a lot of blog fiction for the last couple months. Some have been easier to read than others and not because of what words they used. I'm talking about easier because of how the website has been laid out. I've compile a list of things that all fictional bloggers would do so that it's easier on my eyes and my mouse-clicking-finger. I know now that I made a couple of these very mistakes on my own blog fiction. When I relaunch I'll fix them.

1.) Next and Previous links for individual posts.
When I'm reading through the archives of a blog fiction, I like to click through one at a time. That way, when reading I get into a groove. Read the post, read the comments if any, click next. If there's no next button I have to look over or click over to the archives and slows down my reading time.

2.) Let a headline be clickable
Going off of the first point. Most blogs let you click the headline to look at an individual post. There are still some that don't. Please, don't make me scroll to the end of your post and click some small '#' or the word 'Permalink' just to read your comments or to get back into the groove I was talking about in number 1.

3.) Readable font
Make your writing large and easy to read. I hate having to tell my webbrowser to enlarge all text. It might make the content more readable, but will often break the margins of your sidebar and other formatting. Besides font size, be sure to pick a font type that's easy to read on the screen. One time I was reading a blog and I had firefox increase the font size. I quickly realized that no matter how big the font was, it was still hard to read. Novelr has tips on which font types to use.

4.) Double space Paragraphs
Always have a space in between paragraphs. Dead tree publishers can get away with cramming as much text together as possible. As a digital writer, you cannot. There are few thing harder on the eyes than a whole bunch of text crammed together with no spacing to help break it up. Especially if they are short paragraphs.

5.) Easy to navigate to first page and archives.
So let's say I find a new fictional blog(woohoo!). Now I want to read the story from the beginning. Now what do I do? Until someone catches up with reading your entire archive, they are going to come to your homepage and then click directly to the archives. Please make the archives link easy to find.

6.) Link back to old references
One of the few advantages that us digital publishers have over our dead tree counterparts is that it's sooooooo easy to reference past events. Not all readers can remember everything in a long work of fiction, especially one delivered in instalments. A novel could be ruined if everytime a minor character is mentioned it says next to their name(pg 41), but for a blog fiction writer you can just create a link back to when that character was first introduced. It may be extra work for you, but your infrequent readers will thank you. And who knows, maybe it'll turn your infrequent reader into a regular.

7) Make RSS feed readily available
This is tip not just for fictional bloggers, but for all bloggers. Lots of people use rss aggregators to read their favorite blogs. No reason to believe that a reader of a fictional blog wouldn't do the same.

8) Don't overwhelm your readers with widgets and gizmos
Another tip that's for all bloggers not just the fictional ones. Sometimes, less is more. I hate having to sift through 14 gadgets, 83 directory links, and 34 "cool links" just to find your archives link.

9.) Don't make it hard or impossible to find the publishing dates.
Alright, so maybe this one isn't a hard and fast rule so much as a pet peeve of mine. I hate it when I can't readily find out the date an item was published. I use that too gage how often a blog is updated or if it's currently active. Also I don't like it when the date isn't listed for each post. For instance it's laid out where it lists the date and then just shows all the posts from that date. So, if I want hte date on a post I have to scroll through 2, 3, or 4 other posts... grr! Like I said - pet peeve.

Follow these 9 rules 8 rules and 1 pet peeve and I bet your readers will thank you for it. I know of at least one reader that will. Do you have tips for writers to make their blogs more readable?

Better search results for your fictional blog

My last post about search engines and blog fiction said not to rely on them if your entire website is a fictional blog. I had an idea that, if we all work together, could help blog fiction writers get some search engine traffic.

Before we get to my idea, let's get some background on how search engines work. When you do a search in yahoo or google for the phrase "cats", yahoo and google will give you about 30 billion results. The order that those results come is not random. They will try to give you the most relevant results possible. Most search engines do this based on a combination of the number of times the word "cats" appears on your website, and the number of other websites about "cats" links to your site.

It's that last point that's important. The words someone uses to link to your website is remembered by google (and, other search engines). So if a few hundred people link to your website using the word "cats", then google will think that your website is about "cats" even though the word may never appear on your website.

As I explained in my last post about search engines, the problem is that the words people use to find your fictional blog, may never appear on your website. They certainly never did on mine. No one ever found my fictional blog when doing a search for the words, "fictional blog". To solve this, we should exploit the part of google that takes note of our linking words. If you have a list of fictional blogs, don't link to them by name. Link to them using the words: "fiction", "blog fiction", or "fictional blog" etc...

Let's look at an example. I'll use Fluffy's blogroll, from The Professional Pet Blog Fiction as an example. (Not trying to pick on him, just the website I was reading when I got the idea)
Her Blogroll currently reads:

• (Un)Dead Man Blogging
• Atyllah the Hen
• Horton's Folly
• Peep This Diary
• The Squeaky Boot
• Undead Flowers
• Wilf's World

Linking to those websites using those words doesn't help them at all in the game of search engines. If you do a search for "Atyllah the Hen" or "Wilfs World" their websites already come out on top. However, if someone never heard of "Wilf's World" they wouldn't know to search for it. They would, instead, search for "Blog Fiction" or "Fictional Blog". Here is how I would propose Fluffy should change her blogroll:

• Blog Fiction: (Un)Dead Man Blogging
  
• Blog Fiction: Atyllah the Hen
• Blog Fiction: Horton's Folly
• Blog Fiction: Peep This Diary
• Blog Fiction: The Squeaky Boot
• Blog Fiction: Undead Flowers
• Blog Fiction: Wilf's World

Now, the next time google looks at fluffy's blog, it will note that "Blog Fiction" is used to link to all those other sites. Now, the next time somebody searches on "Blog Fiction" those sites will appear higher on the list. If we all do this for each other, it will be easier for new fans to find our Blog Fiction. I will soon be changing my feed titles to reflect this change.

If you have a fictional blog that I link to, Let me know in the comments if there's a different phrase you'd like me to use when I link to your site.

Review of Starts: Anonymous Lawyer; Lord Likely

[This is part of my series of reviews of blog fiction beginnings. Click here to read more about the importance of the beginning of story or about the criteria I use. This review is not a review of the entire blog fiction story or site, just the first post or two.]

For my first review, I would like to take a look at the beginning of The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely. The first post, titled An Amusing Incident, does not spend it's time explaining why he's taking up blogging, instead, it gets right to it. Here's the first paragraph:

Being a hard-working member of the aristocracy is tiresome fare indeed. When not deciding which hat to wear, or attending private functions, or stabbing a beggar, there's countless other tasks which all vie for my finite attention.

The post continues for another 10 paragraphs, but I think the first should already have you hooked as a reader. First to jump out at you should be the ironic statement of Lord Likely being "a hard-working member of the aristocracy". This sets the tone of Lord Likely's other "observations" in life as well as his condescending attitude. The next sentence sets the tone for Lord Likely's irreverence. The idea that "stabbing a beggar" is as common as "deciding which hat to wear" also reveals Likely's callousness. Overall this is a great beginning to a great Blog Fiction.

Now let's look at the first and second posts of Anonymous Lawyer. The first short post was like so many real blogs. A test message combined with why it's starting.

Just testing. I spend enough time reading what other people are writing that I may as well start my own page.

Kind of a gruff unfriendly start. Just like the character. The second post tells a story that ends with the character saying:

This is power. Making law students vomit. This is why I like being a lawyer.

The story definitely reveals something of the character writing the blog. It also sets the tone of "Anonymous Lawyer" constantly trying to make himself feel better by making others miserable. Another appropriate start to a great Blog Fiction.

If you're looking for good online fiction, check out both of these blogs. As you can see, you'll enjoy both of these right from the beginning. Let me know in the comments your own review of these two fictional blogs.

New Blog Fiction Definition

When I first started this blog I posted what the best definition of blog fiction I could come up with. It wasn't a very elegant definition. It was long and complicated and fit a new story telling medium into a rather small box.

I think I may have come up with a better definition.

A story published using blog software that uses common blogging tools to create the story in a way that would be difficult for other medium to replicate.

The new definition has two advantages. The first advantage is that it's shorter and could be put into a dictionary. The second advantage it encompasses current blog fiction without precluding future innovation. I also think it's a little more flattering of a definition than the one Wikipedia gives:

a form of fiction writing that uses weblogs to reach its readership. It is a small-scale fringe activity in the world of blogging, and although it has generated some literary critical interest, it remains isolated. It is presented in many forms, from a pretend diary or posted novel to a serialblog.

Going forward my new definition is the one I will use when looking for new Blog Fiction. Hopefully the rest of you who find my blog will use this new definition when adding your own blog fiction to the list.

Compared to my last attempt at defining a blog fiction, I think it includes some of the categories I explicitly excluded last time. This was a conscious decision. Rereading my old definition and looking at more closely of the stuff that's out there, I decided that it was too narrow. That's why this one is a bit more broad.

Please let me know in the comments what you think of my new definition.

Beginning a Blog Fiction

Call me Ishmael
It was the best of times, It was the worst of times.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

What do all three of these phrases have in common? They are the first line to timeless story telling. In one line the tone of a story or character is placed in the mind of the reader: The Character is a cast-away, It's a time of contradictions, An epic fairy tale. The first line of a story can also draw in the reader by making them ask questions that they want to know the answer too. "Why is telling me to call him Ishmael? Is that his real name? Is it a biblical reference? How can it be the best and worst of times?"

Blog Fiction is no different than any other fiction in that it needs to draw the reader into the story. Much of the blog fiction that I've found starts off with a justification of why the character is starting to blog or a diary. The first post follows the formula, "I'm starting this because of [x]". Some other's go for authenticity by making the first post something along the line: "I hope this shows up when I hit publish!" As if the character is testing the blog software. Some may not have a real beginning and just start writing.

I don't know which way is best. Actually, I don't think there is a 'best' way. As long as it's interesting I think a writer can start a Blog Fiction however (s)he wants.

A regularly occurring series here will be me reviewing the first (and second and third, when appropriate) post of the blog fictions that I've found. I'll be basing it on 3 criteria: Does the tone it set in sync with the character or story? Does it draw in the reader? Is it Original or Clever?

I will review more than a couple per post as warranted. If I give a bad review I will do my best to contact the Author and see if they would like to either comment or rebut. If there is a rebut, I'll post it on the front and include a comment in the original review that contains a link to the rebuttal.

There'll be no particular order in which blog fiction I review first other than I'll give some sort of preference to blog fiction that is currently active.

Look for the first reviews in the next day or two.