Can you tell our readers about the Twitter Diaries?
The Twitter Diaries tells the story of pen pals for the 21st century. Two parallel lives separated by an ocean but united over a social network. It's an e-book novel written entirely in 140 character Twitter Odirect messages¹.
Your inspiration came from your own friendship, however when did you decide to bring it all together?
We became friends over Twitter, direct messaging each other, from there it somehow became a natural progression. Hopefully people will have as much fun reading about Stella and Tuesday, our two main characters, as we did writing about them.
How accessible is this to people who have yet to use or do not like twitter?
It's completely accessible if you're not on Twitter it will just read to you like a fun conversation. We ease you in with a prologue in prose and every tweet is spelt properly "and" is and not "&"! Our Mums loved the book and they're not on Twitter!
it is a very original idea, how do you think this will affect the future of writing?
We'll have to wait and see what happens but we went with publishing it with Bloomsbury as an ebook first as it felt right for the book and you may well see more books being done that way.
Was it difficult to write within such a small constraint of 140 words?
We got used to it! It's just like writing dialogue.
How did you go about making the tweets link to one another and form a story?
We had a detailed plot outline and knew what plot points we had to hit in each chapter. From there it was just a matter of our characters confiding in each other just as friends do.
For those who have not yet joined Twitter, how does it benefit your life?
We wouldn't have become friends but for Twitter it's a great way to interact. It's also fantastic for keeping up with the news and what people are up to.
What are the positives and negatives of using this as a form of communication?
You get to control what you say and have right of reply. Of course there is a negative side that has been talked about and will probably be addressed more, but our experience of Twitter has been overwhelmingly positive.
How do you think tweeting can affect the life of a writer?
When it's just you and a keyboard it can get very lonely when Twitter is there, there's a whole world out there right at your fingertips.
www.thetwitterdiaries.com
Female First Lucy Walton
by Lucy Walton
find me on 
and follow me on 
