Shane Jones' TripleQuick Fiction spans only three iPhone screens
The fine feathered flock at Featherproof Books has launched their latest publishing innovation, TripleQuick Fiction. It's an iPhone app featuring a new 333-word short story that fits into three iPhone screens and can be read in less than three minutes. The idea is simple: bursts of fiction on the go to go with you.
Readers and writers alike will benefit from a new platform to be introduced to or to expose oneself to a new audience. Imagine if stories are shared like pictures stored in phones: baby pictures will be getting the same exposure as baby stories. Some of the writers slated for the September launch are "Matt Bell, Michael Kimball and Shane Jones (his is pictured below!). There [will be] featherproof novelists like Blake Butler, Amelia Gray, and Lindsay Hunter flourishing within the new form." The design looks pretty cool and engaging, too, which is what we've come to expect from the Bleached Whale of book design.
I'm all for using technology to broaden the audience for story telling. Because the stories are so short they may seem simple and disposable but writing good flash fiction is challenging because you only have so few words--333 in this case--to create, or at least suggest, a world, to take the reader there and let her experience it. Reading a really good piece of flash (or TripleQuick) is like back in the day when you caught a song on the radio or from a friend's mix tape that hit you in that unique way and mad eyou run out and buy the whole album. There's that connection and you want to know the writer better and read more of their work.
The featherproof flock encourages submissions, as well. "Those with the writerly inclination can just type in three screens of their best work, type in a bio, even take an author photo using the iPhone's camera, and submit the story to the featherproof editors. When inspiration strikes, don't go hunting for a paper and pen, just send it to us, on the double. Or rather, on the triple."
For TripleQuick Fiction to work, you need an iPhone or iPod touch and you need to get it at the iTunes app store in September.
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