David Mitchell, the author of Cloud Atlas, has published his latest short story The Right Sort in 140 characters at a time on Twitter.
The first tweets from the new psychological horror story began on the @david_mitchell Twitter account on 14 July and finished up on 20 July.
“Once the idea that I could use Twitter as a storytelling medium bit me, it wouldn’t leave me alone,” Mitchell was quoted as saying in The Guardian.
The tale, spread out over 270 or so tweets, tells the story about a boy tripping on his mother’s Valium pills.
“He likes Valium because it reduces the bruising hurly-burly of the world into orderly, bite-sized ‘pulses’,” Mitchell said.
“So the boy is essentially thinking and experiencing in tweets,” said Mitchell.
*For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.* Their fingers weave, like hieroglyphics in sign language.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 20, 2014
“My hope is then that the rationale for deploying Twitter from inside the story, rather than it being imposed by me, from outside, as a gimmick.”
Mitchell’s efforts follow in the footsteps of authors Jennifer Egan, Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman, who have also released works in experimental form on social media.
Author image via Shutterstock
