[lit-ideas] "Wiki" novel

  • From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 09:53:51 EST

This is an interesting move....I doubt this first experiment will have much  
more than the attraction of, er, novelty.  (I'm thinking it's going to read  a 
lot like HitchHiker's Galaxy meets Heidegger meets Keillor meets Harlequin,  
meets Snoop Dog, but of course it will be indefinitely editable by an 
indefinite  number of people.  "On a dark and stormy night...")  It's going  to 
be 
interesting to see if and how this kind of application of technology  
influences 
the creation of ........literature?  I'd love to read any  thoughts any of you 
have on this article.
 
_Click  here: Publisher launches its first "wiki" novel - Yahoo! News_ 
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070201/wr_nm/penguin_wiki_dc;_ylt=AnBVXiLkUgmGtOoxo.KVf
B0DW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhZDhxNDFzBHNlYwNtZW5ld3M-)  
 
 
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Fancy trying your hand at creative writing but can't 
 quite find the time? Tired of scribbling away all by yourself?  
    ADVERTISEMENT

British publisher Penguin may have the answer -- a Web-based, collaborative  
novel that can be written, edited or read by anyone, anywhere thanks to "wiki" 
 software, the technology behind Web encyclopaedia  
_Wikipedia_ (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Wikipedia) 
.
The novel, "A Million Penguins," went live on Thursday and its first lines  
are already being written, edited and rewritten by enthusiasts on  
www.amillionpenguins.com. 
Penguin, which embarked on the project with a group of creative writing and  
new media students, says it is using the novel as a test of whether a group of 
 disparate and diverse people can create a "believable fictional voice." 
"This is an experiment. It may end up like reading a bowl of alphabet  
spaghetti," Jeremy Ettinghausen, head of digital publishing at Penguin UK said, 
 
adding there were no plans as yet to publish the completed work. 
"We are not making any predictions. It would be utterly fantastic if we could 
 at the end create a print remix." 
So far, the first chapter includes Carlo, a troubled man walking his dog, and 
 "on the other side of the globe" a seductive murderer, Tom Morouse, "known 
as  the Tango poisoner." 
The experimental novel, which Penguin says is the first "wiki novel" to be  
started from scratch by a major publishing house, will be online for at least  
six weeks. 
But it warns budding artists that the work is not a talent search and insists 
 it expects a variety of tones and abilities. 
"In an ideal world we could throw in a sense of plausibility, balance and  
humor," Penguin's blogger, Jon Elek, wrote in an entry earlier this week. 
"That's asking a lot, and in truth I'll be happy so long as it manages to  
avoid becoming some sort of  
robotic-zombie-assassins-against-African-ninjas-in-space-narrate  
d-by-a-Papal-Tiara type of thing." 

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