record – LABS

Thesis Info

Thesis Title: Blovels, Twovels and Cell Phone Novels: Bridges to Literature or Roads to Nowhere?

URL where full thesis can be found: vcfawcya.s3.amazonaws.com/theses/Kathleen_S_Wilson.pdf

Keywords: Digital Literature, Cell Phone Novels, History of Literature, Digital Fiction, Digital Serials, Epistolary Narratives, Episodic Digital Novels, Blog Novels, Twitter Novels, Fiction for Networked Devices

Abstract: 200-500 words: In 2002 a writer in Japan, pen-named Yoshi, self-published the first novel known to have been composed on a cell phone. It sold a hundred thousand copies, mostly to young women in their teens and early twenties. Japanese publisher, Starts Publishing, took notice, picked it up, and turned it into a series of novels that eventually sold 2.6 million copies. This craze spread quickly throughout Asia, particularly to China and Korea, as well as to Africa and India. By 2010, it was just beginning to gain traction in the United States where the tools of choice were not cell phones, but social networking and blog sites, such as Twitter and Wordpress. While their popularity could not be denied, the literary value of cell phone novels was hotly debated in Japan. Critics around the globe have since analyzed the phenomenon and what it means for the future of reading and writing. This paper examines the origins and cultural context of cell phone novels in Japan and considers the literary value of emerging forms of digital fiction worldwide by reviewing a sampling of novels written and read on networked digital devices and by exploring trends in the academic and publishing communities that point to the relevance of this phenomenon to writers for children and young adults.