Facebook Status Stories

I embarked on a new challenge this week and since our topic for the Meet n Greet was on trying new styles, I think this fits in well.

The new challenge was to do a Facebook status story—an on-going story told in blocks of less than 500 characters via a Facebook status. I know there are writers who’ve done it on twitter ( I can’t even  imagine having the character count be only 120 characters!)

But a fabulous writer friend started hers a few months back and the idea has been in the back of my mind for a while (and I’ll admit, I wanted to see how she did hers and I’m enjoying each Wed & Sunday when I can read her next installment!!)

I’ve had the short story bug for the last few months and I wanted to extract some characters from my first novel (that is now in a drawer) and play with them in some short stories.

So I decide to give this status story form a try. I found the form to be not only challenging, but a unique way to see a story—which is in chunks, so that each post is intriguing enough on its own

It’s like the Six Sentence Sunday blogging project where you post six sentences from your WIP. A lot of those bloggers are posting six sentences consecutively…so, that their entire novel is posted (eventually)

But with this, at least to me, it’s not about taking a novel and extracting less than 500 characters in sequence to post. It’s about seeing the whole story in blocks and making each block as interesting as possible.

Maybe this intrigues me the same way Flash Fiction does—that you are telling a snippet of a story with as few words as possible.

So, I asked both Jeannine and Jess about their experience with it.

1. Ladies, this idea is much like the popular web-fiction where you post chapters once or twice a week on a website and readers can read along, leave comments and interact with the story. Yet, it is very different due to the limit of less than 500 characters a post. When you started doing this, what did you find to be the most challenging?

Jeannine: When I started this, it was a limit of 420 characters per post, which was probably the most challenging.  Fitting the story into segments that make sense on their own as “status bites” was also something I had to work with.

Jess: Attempting to make each 500 character story into a self-contained unit, like a complete flash fiction piece with beginning-middle-end. Now I’m focusing more on making each piece as satisfying as possible, but they can’t always stand alone. (I don’t think most of them do!)

2. Do you think that in reducing a story to blocks like is done with this, that it has helped you see your writing in a new way? Do you play more with sentence structures in order to utilize the words best?

Jeannine: I find it’s easier to write a story that flows one line into another, but to make it fit within the constraints of the “status” and then flow into the next – that required some new thinking.  The whole thought behind the FB Status Story challenge was to force me to tell the story in as few words as possible – so word choice and sentence structure are integral.  Sometimes I’ll have it just how I want it, think it works perfectly and then I put it in my character counter and see I’m over limit – then I have to edit out any un-necessary words or see if there’s a better (aka shorter) word choice I can use to get under the count and still make it work.

Jess: I don’t spend as much time with sentence structure, though the order of words does play a part. This experiment has more so taught me the value of a word. It’s an even more extreme version of the limitations imposed by a 100 page screenplay. These Status Stories are basically 100 words or less and are not forgiving of a habit of filler words. I’m asking myself, “Do I really need this word? Is there a better, preferably shorter, one I can use instead? Or can I cut it entirely without losing what I’m trying to convey?” A

3. Are you creating the story as you go or do you know the entire story and how it will end?

Jeannine: It’s funny because when I wrote the first few “snippets” I actually thought the story would go a completely different way than it is.  When I go back and look at my notes, I see a place six weeks or so in where I had actually written an ending for the story, but a new ending popped into my head just before posting that section, so I kept going.  Carly wasn’t ready to go away yet, so I made myself sit down and figure out what was going to happen, so I didn’t just ramble on for a year and not get anywhere. 

I had to make a plot outline that now helps to guide me from point to point.  But I just know the major plot points, not how she gets to each – like now, she’s met this new person, Paula and she’s standing in front of a bar, when all she wanted was a diner to get a burger.  When I wrote down the plot point introducing Paula, I had intended for it to be a diner – but when I started writing out the segments, it turned into a bar and it’s become the perfect set-up for the trouble that Carly was going to get into at this point of the story.

Jess: I know the BIG plot points that are coming up. So I’m pretty much filling in the blanks between those major points. It’s actually driving me crazy trying to get to the first one because I want to write it soooooooo bad!

4. What made you decide to do this? What do you hope to get out of it as a writer?

Jeannine: Ha!  I blame you for this!  We kept talking about word counts and how it can limit a story, and then you were talking about Web Fiction.  I had seen a FB page of “status stories” – where it’s Flash Flash Fiction – a whole story in less than 500 characters.  Not quite up to THAT severe a limitation challenge, I let all the notions roll around in my head for a little while and came up with this notion of “FB Status Stories,” kind of combining all the concepts.  I wanted to tell a full (short) story, but in units that would fit in a status box and stand on their own if read out of context.

A lot of people have asked me to post some of my writing – either on FB, on a blog, or some where where they could read it, and I figured this would be as good as any.  In a future story, I hope to make it more interactive – letting the readers decide/suggest what would happen to the MC  next.

As a writer, I saw it as a new way to challenge myself.  It makes me think more about all the structural elements in writing than if I just sat down and wrote a regular short story.  Plus, I’ve had a lot of fun doing it – even if you may hear me muttering under my breath about being “frickin’ five characters over!”

Jess: I’ve been enjoying Jeannine’s status stories and wanted to give it a go myself! I’m looking at this experiment as writing practice of several kinds: becoming more selective in word choice and using each word better, in putting together a complete story with all the mini-stories put together, writing every day, and just having FUN.

5. Ladies, have either of you had any “aha” moments or specific challenges with this?

Jeannine: Aha moments?  Other than just the regular writing ones of – “Character did what???” and such?  That maybe I should have set a “time limit” on myself for how many weeks/months it would take to post the story.  Other than that, because I’ve been working on it in between other pieces, trying not to repeat myself and trying not to contradict myself has been a challenge.  Oh, and remembering where I was in posting!  But then I started highlighting my document to mark the paragraph as I post it and it really helped me.  (One time, I actually skipped three whole segments because I was on the road and lost my place!  But it was good, I was able to restructure and work around it.  I think it did confuse some people though – if not, then I guess I really didn’t need those paragraphs, did I?)

Jess: I’m enjoying writing these stories because they’re liberating in a way. They’re not a monumental novel project and they’re not a short story for a competition. They’re just writing for the sake of writing. I can write one or more per day and have the satisfaction of knowing I’ve written that day.

My biggest challenge now? Dialogue. Dialogue eats up some serious space! I mean, most screenplays are probably 80-90% dialogue. I’ve found myself avoiding it in these status stories as much as possible. Again, it’s another challenge to make the most of what the characters are saying in the tiniest amount of space. I think this whole idea can only help improve my writing. Time shall tell!

Thank you ladies! You can read their Facebook status stories on their Facebook Pages here: Jeannine Wynne and Jess W. Jacob.

Mine is n a Facebook profile, so you’ll need to request to be a friend:  Ash Joie Lee

We are each posting on Wednesday & Sunday.