Remediation Project

For my project, I chose to remediate a short story I wrote for a creative writing class into tweets. The non-fiction story occurred before the days of camera phones and Twitter. I wanted to explore how different my retelling of the road trip would have been had I been able to tell it in the moment through Twitter.

Language
My first step was editing the short story paragraphs into 140 character tweets. Rather than truncate words, I had to capture the idea in a sentence or two. Given the informality of tweets, I had more creative leeway. For example, in my original composition I described the irony of my situation "At that moment, however, our eyes widen and our bladders fill as we see the horror miles up the road--traffic. This is not Atlanta. This is not Los Angeles. This is West Kansas, no place for cars to pile up." For Twitter, I reduced that thought to an equation: "Kansas + Prairie = Traffic? WTF." Given the form of the remediation, I could also use acronyms and curse more readily than would be appropriate for a short story.

I wrote the tweets to be short and entertaining. I had the same audience in mind that I do when I am tweeting for fun. However, when I began tweeting my prepared statements, I quickly had to adjust what I said and my dispersal of the story. Twitter is participatory, so my followers commented on my tweets and asked questions. Four of the followers were warned that this was fake and encouraged to comment. One follower, Ryan, believed I was really tweeting from I-70 in Kansas.

Because Ryan didn't know he was in an experiment, he rushed my story along. He wanted to know what my family was going to do if the tornado got too close. "arveem @Rhiremediation Is it full formed? What if it turns towards you, what's the procedure?" I had prepared a pithy tweet for that purpose, but I was still building tension in my story. I had not expected how participants would rush through the plot looking for flashy updates rather than sit back and let the story unfold. This took away some of my ability as a writer to control the progression or direction of my story. Because of Twitter, Ryan was now a part of the story. For that reason, if I were to remediate the tweet stream into a short story, it would now include my experience watching these tornadoes with my followers' commentary.

Aural/Visual
Twitter took away some of my control with language, but it gave me more tools to tell my story aurally and visually. For my short story, I had to make word pictures and work on writing in concrete language. "Show don't tell" is a big axiom with writing. When forced to tell a story only in language, the writer can practice using their senses to describe a scene. With Twitter, I could fall back on pictures and videos to do the talking. I am literally showing the reader/follower what I mean. Rather than having to qualify a movie or song reference I make, I can include a link for you to check out. This is certainly less challenging, but it is more fun for the reader. I conducted this experiment in the room of a friend. She would read a tweet, click a link, hear the song and start laughing. It was better than just reading "Culture Club," the follower could really hear my pain with the power of the internet. "Rhiremediation My dad's I-70 playlist: The Beatles, Yanni, Culture Club, and wait for it...Spice Girls. Lord forgive him. http://tinyurl.com/yawo9st"

I scoured Google images and YouTube looking for footage to include with my tweets. I wanted to add a visual element and make the story more authentic. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find believable pictures, and I didn't want Ryan to know I was lying. This whole story would have been greatly enhanced by more pictures and video of the tornado. I imagine seeing footage of the funnels would have added a lot more drama to the story. For the followers that knew this was fake, they attempted to tweet what they guessed they would say. Ryan was tweeting from his heart. After seeing the picture I posted (and had to alter in Photoshop to look like mine), he asked "arveem @Rhiremediation http://twitpic.com/13il2i - Whoah... is that safe?"

Tweeting the story during the experience allows for immediacy, and the inclusion of pictures, audio and video creates hypermediacy. I am constantly sending followers on different paths to enhance my tweet. If my tweets are compelling enough; however, they should come back to get an update. Immediacy works well with a dramatic story, as mine wanted to be. As Ryan tweeted, it was like network news coverage, so he refreshed the page for new tweets just as he did for CNN. This way of experiencing my writing is like being told an anecdote rather than reading a story. Followers approached the story at different points depending on when they logged onto Twitter or checked their phones. My story is not suited for a rhizome characterization, however, because the follower has to scroll back to get context. Each tweet does not stand alone. I tried to reply to followers while maintaining autonomy by referencing partially what I am responding to. I believe the genre was maintained in the sense that the voice and purpose were the same. I was trying to entertain the audience, so I kept the humor and tried to hold onto my followers' attention through compelling pictures.

Conclusion
The tweets were more fun and easier to write than the short story. The short story was already written, so I could condense the language into funny statements. My original already had a cynical, tongue-in-cheek tone which made it appropriate for the new medium. I enjoyed writing the tweets that preceded the experiment more than the ones I made in real time. I had more time to choose my language and sculpt the message. I felt rushed to keep the momentum going, so I began talking more like I would in an instant message to my followers. My writing regression took away the rewarding part of composition. I imagine with more practice, I would be able to write off-the-cuff statements I loved too, but something is definitely lost in the instantaneous nature of live story telling. This type of story telling did not allow for sustained reflection. I had to weave my tale back into the comments amongst all the jokes and nonsense that my followers posted. As a writer trying to control the stream of the story, I would have to refrain from commenting back to followers or create a separate space to do so. The audience's ability to comment can really shape the form and tone of a story, for better or worse. This remediation project improved certain aspects of the short story. I included multimedia, made the story more interactive and used immediacy to my advantage. I think they are different stories; however, so one is not better than the other.