Notes Towards A Theory of Twitter (Revised)
January 22nd, 2012
Introduction:
How does Twitter work as a new literary form? Not as a form of social media, or platform to get famous, or business venture, but as a writing form. Here are my ideas towards a theory of Twitter. I argue it is associative and based upon the sentence. And one other things.
Body
Twitter is an associative writing form, not a narrative one. In Twitter, we are sent somewhere else-via a link-or reminded of something. We are not telling stories. Thus, while the twitter fiction is swell and cute, it usually it misses the generic boat. Twitter promises a new slate for poets. For fiction writers, not so much. (For what I find to be a notable exception, see my piece for Economist.com). Tweets create meaning and aesthetic experiences by reminding us, not by telling a story.
1.a.) Twitter does not operate on the narrative arc of rising action, suspense, climax, and denouement. There is no arc. Instead, Twitter is horizontal-one thing reminds one of another thing, instead of one thing leading to another thing. This works on the level of interTwittering (i.e.: Read something on the web. Think it would be nice to share. Link to it in Twitter. Go back to what you were doing), and intraTwittering (i.e. Read an interesting tweet. Respond by posting a new tweet. Go back to reading other tweets).
1.b) If there is a perspective induced by Twitter, it is an immanent one-we are all inside-rather than an objective one-here is how I see things. Twitter lacks single-point perspective (or omniscience).
2.) Twitter helps resist the curse of paragraphism. Word processing programs and online writing have focused our attention on the paragraph. When we wrote on paper, or typed on a typewriter, writing was readily conceptualized on the level of the page (as in “phew! I’ve finished one of four pages of my assignment!”). Lately, the paragraph has reigned. As one cannot “see” an entire paper, or, often a whole page, when composing on a computer, writing became more shaped around the element one can easily grasp on a computer monitor-the paragraph. The paragraph is the unit of a written work most equivalent to a computer screen. Paragraph-ism has created firmer divisions between tabs, as paragraphs are conceived more distinctly, and, during the writing process, often worked on and worried before considering the next paragraph. I hazard that we have also become habituated to thinking in paragraphs: we think in topics, with a few supporting ideas. Nothing proves this more than reading 5 paragraph essays by high-schoolers and college first-years. In the Twitterverse, we think in sentences.
2.a.) A new focus on the sentence is salutary. The paragraph is a fine element upon which to dwell, but it does not foreground word choice, syntax, and punctuation as well as the sentence does. Clarity and concision-two key elements of style-are garnered on the sentence level, and prose ethics and politics are best gleaned on the sentence level, too: the subjects and verbs we choose make a difference, as George Orwell taught us in “Politics and the English Language.” Twitter exposes how often we obscure agency, nominalize and use two words when one would do. The Twitter box, with hard lines all around, makes the space of thought stark.
Twitter may have some odd analogy to a compositor’s stick. Compositors would select type and put letters in their stick, upside down and backwards, before laying them on a galley. The average length of the type in a stick before laying down (or “publishing”) is not too far from 140 characters.
Conclusion:
There is no summing up on twitter. There are many arrows pointing one across (not up or down) to the ideas of others, cross-fertilization, and forced attention to the composition of sentences.
(for a guide on how to tweet, see Why Tweet? And How To Do It)