Electric Literature logo: innovative publisher devolops new way to make Rick Moody annoying

As Michael Cader put it on the subscription only Publishers Lunch, “Experimentation is how you learn but sometimes the lessons are tough ones. Long-form narrative may not belong on Twitter and after this week’s tweeting of a short story by Rick Moody through Electric Literature, we may not have to think about it for a while.”

On the Los Angeles Times book blog Book Jacket, a report by Carolyn Kellogg explains that Moody agreed to write a short story that would be published on Twitter, 140 characters at a time. “Moody took up the challenge when it was suggested by the innovative new magazine Electric Literature, which is publishing ‘Some Contemporary Characters’ simultaneously with about 20 others, including L.A. bookstores Vroman’s and Skylight and CalArts’ literary magazine Black Clock.” [Full disclosure: MobyLives was asked to participate but declined.]

What happened next, as per Cader,

“Receiving an entire story in 140-character tweets dispatched every 10 minutes is challenging enough conceptually for a reader. But the big flaw came when EL enlisted about 20 partners to join in tweeting the story, all at the same time. Presumably someone thought that was the way to maximize distribution but many of those partners, which included Vroman’s and Skylight bookstores, share “followers”–and most of those followers signed on for the voice, information and frequency of posts they expect from those posters, rather a steady dispatch from Rick Moody six times an hour all day long. As Maud Newton wrote yesterday, “Why is Rick Moody’s Twitter fiction running on multiple feeds? More to the point, multiple feeds I follow.“

The unexpected barrage of Moody quickly set off a stream of angry and mocking tweets from other users yesterday–and Twitter is an excellent instrument for spreading negative feedback quickly–as bookseller Arsen Kashkashian wrote, “Is Rick Moody trying to sabotage what’s left of his career in 1 day. Worst use of Twitter I’ve ever seen. Please, please stop the madness.”

As Kellog observed afterward on Book Jacket, “Twitter has a viral recirculation tool — retweeting, or an RT in a post — which is organic and feels like a shared secret. But this project isn’t using retweeting, it’s simply sending out the same broadcast from many places at once — leaving the receiver to feel like he or she has been attacked by clones. No fun … it shows that Twitter as a storytelling form hasn’t been fully exploited — yet,” although she says, “What role Twitter eventually will take in our culture — other than short-attention-span distraction — is hard to predict. But surely it is a possible venue for telling short stories, and Electric Literature is to be commended for splashing in with this one.”

Moody, meanwhile, seems to have missed something. In a Wall Street Journal report on the fiasco, he says, “I guess we are victims of marketing success here. … I am pleased with the instantaneity of the responses, but like many responses that come to pass in the digital world, they seem to have the not-fully-cooked quality that you get with immediacy.”