Novel Blog Styles
In my research on alternate forms of blogs, I came across an article from last year that struck me. It is written (sadly) on an AOL blog by a guy named Dan Harp.
Dan makes the correct observation that most bloggers blog about a small core of topics. He calls those “personal confession and strident political commentary”, but I think I’d expand that to tech as well. I mean, most blogs in Technorati have to do with Politics and Tech or are personal blogs, right?
Dan suggests some ideas for novel approaches to blogging – and I must say I’d love to see these kinds of blogs. They would be brilliant.
- A blog written by a fictional character about his/her fictional life.
- A blog by a real person about his/her travels in a fictional place.
- A blog of literary or arts reviews (by multiple authors).
- A “historical blog,” written from the point of view of a historical figure as if s/he were blogging in her/his own era, a sort of blog re-enactment; e.g., a Plimoth Plantation blog, a Civil War soldier’s blog, etc.
- A blogicization of Dante’s Inferno, or Defore’s Journal of a Plague Year, etc.
- Or best of all, something that’s just plain new and different.
The historical blog really strikes me. I’m an avid armchair historian, particularly World War II history. Can’t get enough of it. I imagine a blog written by a U.S. Army Private assigned to the 82nd Airborne dropping into Normandy or bunkered down in Bastogne. That would be captivating commentary.
Steven Champeon, in a previous lifetime, blogged (short for “Web logged�) his grandfather’s diaries. (Or his father’s, I forget.)
You need to understand, though, that blogs written by or starring fictional characters are fiction (or frauds) and are not per se blogs.
The history blog idea reminds me of the hilarious book I found today – The Lost Blogs: From Jesus to Jim Morrison by Paul Davidson.
BTW, why do the emoticons for our comments have to look so perplexed or close-mouthed?! I’d like mine to look more friendly. :)
Constipated is what I’d describe the emoticon as :)
That is a really interesting philosophy to delve into. People write about what they know, are or have learned. They write because it connects us. It is us. Online and offline are beginning to be the same.
Any of your novel ideas could make fabulous blogs. Any blog is an extension of the person(s) writing it. The rules are simple; there is none. The internet as we know it is becoming one large organic conciousness. It’s quite remarkable that you could blog about divorcing, loving, warring, peace keeping, bunny making, cat loving, sex, drawings, paintings and be connected so easily, instantly to those of like minds as the phenomina grows. For that matter everyone is directly or indirectly affected by blogs.
No other form of communication gives us this ability. We are concious for the first time in history about the world.
thanks for sharing your ideas : )
(to make your constipated emoticon smile simply type a space into the middle of the mouth and eyes.) he he
Arron – take a look at this blog. It’s historical with a twist. I like it.
http://www.pasttense.nl/
It is written as though an upcoming event has already preceded us.
I think the ideas for fictional novel blogs are exciting and have huge potential. Blogging could become an art form from a literary perspective. There aren’t blog “genres”, perhaps there should be. I’d prefer an interesting fictional blog to an uninteresting factual one.
If blog readers have grown tired of the personal, technological and political blog, a new wave of creative literary blogs could be the answer. The very factors that make blogging fascinating; it’s adherence to the factual, everyday life and the author’s personality, can also limit it’s avenues for creativity.
There is the amusing Chaucer Hath A Blog, where the father of English Literature smears his contemporaries in an amusing fashion.
Someone has put Samuel Pepys diary online, although that is not so much a blog as a republishing.
Regarding fictional blogs, I’m wondering how that sort of creativity would be any different from serialised, diary fiction such as Briget Jones Dairy (originally a weekly column in The Independent Newspaper) – I’m sure there are other, more classical examples. To put it another way – what is added to the fiction by posting it online, and not in a book? More interesting are those examples that utilise the unique features of the internet, such as hyperlinking and non-linearity.
I’ve actually been toying with my idea of a US Army Private in the 82nd Airborne in Europe (WWII)…. Sounds intriguing but I don’t know how well I know my stuff.
Arron – I don’t think you need to know your stuff… as you begin to write it will evolve into it’s own. It would be a little larger then Bridget Jon’e s Diary simply because it was birthed in the blgoosphere. If you chose to ad hyperinking it would become non-linear. However it would still hold page form because of the way a blog is published. That is an interesting thought Robert also. Because it is online anyone in the blogospere could potentially contribute to it.
much different that turning pages of paper – links would lead you to it or back to it or somewhere else.
; )
hmmmm – gets me thinking.
I already have something at the top of my blog that states “Everything you read could be real”. It only could be real.
…she’s a flight risk (http://shes.aflightrisk.org/) hasn’t been updated in a few months but there was a lot of speculation that it was fictional.
I’ve seen these kinds of blogs around and they work well. I have dabbled with doing one myself, but considering my novel progress, I couldn’t guaruntee any consistency.