Starting a New Story. The Big Questions.

So… I’m about to do something monumentally stupid. Worse than that, I’m performing this extreme stupidity in a very public way.

I’m truly terrified (and maybe a tiny bit excited) of my next creative project.

The short of it

I’ll be writing a novel, using Twitter/X (if it can survive long enough), Bluesky, and maybe other short-form social media platforms. This will be the key basis for my PhD research/project.

It will happen over time. It will be open. It will probably involve some interaction and choices.

The great thing is that I’ll be making lots of mistakes as I go along and learning from them. I don’t know where I’m going or how I’ll get there.

This is bad for anyone, but the stuff of night-terrors for the sort of writer that is used to writing 10K plot outlines before he starts (one time it was 14K).

No hiding the work for months, or years, until it’s polished and shiny. It’s putting it out there as it happens. Typos, gruesome grammar, weird punctuation, truncated formatting, impossible plot holes I’ve dug for myself – the whole nasty process will live forever in the digital realms.

And I’m giving myself the added burden of 30-50 words for each snippet. To be honest, I’m talking myself out of it as I’m typing this. But I’m not one to back away easily.

Every mistake will be an opportunity to learn, adapt, refine and document. He says, laughing in the face of his own stupidity.

The slightly longer bit of it

The big questions when starting a story are, generally: When, where, who and why.

One of the hardest questions a writer has to face is when and where to start a story. In this case, I have a set of characters, a specific time, and a location. Lucky, right? No. I need your help.

As things stand, the eventual aim is to create a ‘time loop’ story. There have been many set over a single day. Not many over an hour. It will be set on the night of Daylight Savings hour reversal, in autumn, where the clocks physically go back an hour, causing a localised ‘time reset’. The only time us humans get to really ‘reverse’ time.

In a change to most crime fiction, everyone in this story will be killed. Some might be killed more than once.

Why? We’ll find that out as we go along. How do they die? You’ll be asked to help with that too.

Where? Where better than a fictional isolated fort off the rugged and bleak Norfolk coastline? The fort has been remodelled and is now an exclusive well-being resort.

What is the story called? Story titles can change, but for now, it’s called What a Time to be Alive.

How will the story be told? Initially on Twitter/X and BlueSky, using vss (very short stories). I’ll be using the hashtag #vssphd.

Why Twitter? I’m starting there as the vss365 project was highly successful and has enabled countless writers to craft thousands of characters, stories and worlds. Many have evolved to larger projects. Dozens of vss-based platforms now exist.

Flash fiction then vss365 inspired my PhD project. I not only want to create and document the craft of a unique work of fiction, I want to do it openly, on a platform that anyone can use to read. What can we learn from doing this? I hope that anyone can craft a book, and using platforms like Twitter can enable this regardless of a person’s background, education or limitations that might make traditional routes harder. Time is a critical factor too; how many people have the time to write a novel traditionally? It is a privilege most don’t have. I hope this project can help other writers, but also practitioners or researchers that might want to build on anything I have managed to learn.

Why BlueSky? It’s very similar to Twitter and is a backup option. Twitter is currently undergoing ‘turbulence’. But the platform itself isn’t the key. They key is being able to use social media to create a novel over time, with limit word/character counts.

Is this going to be easy? Nope. Do I have all the answers? Definitely not. But, that’s all part of the process of research.

How can you help?

So, this is where you come in. Having some help will be essential. Hopefully, you can not only influence the work itself by making choices along the way, but assist me to understand the process so that it can be helpful to others. This will form the most important part of my research.

I’ll keen to get started. Your help at this stage is as easy as a clicking a multiple-choice option.

When we get to the main story, the first choice you’ll be given is who to bump-off first. I’ll then use this to write the first chapter. Then, another choice awaits.

Before we get there

My supervisor has recommended starting with something else and building up as this will allow me to learn, observe and adapt.

There is always a story before a story, right? One that is often not explored.

I have been meaning to further explore the folklore, legends, and landscapes of East Anglia for some time. So, this is a great place to start. I’ll be introducing the characters from the main story by dropping them into some places I wanted to explore for some time. This will be in the lead-up to the main story.

Your first choice will determine which location I start with. I’ll publish a poll in the very early days of 2024.

Just select your favourite via the vote option in Twitter (early Jan 24) and I’ll start posting in the days after the poll closes. It’s as simple as that. Where do I start this multi-year journey? Which story do I tell first? Your votes will decide:

1. Fact-finding in forest with a history
2. A morning escape in an ancient parkland
3. The view from a vending machine on the seafront
4. A stargazer in an empty field at night

*In the event of a draw, I’ll use dice to decide.

Thanks in advance for your support, positivity, and help – Mark