Normal City Limits

State of Normal is an experimental project that I debuted last fall on twitter.

I’m a former journalist, current copywriter/web designer, and former failed screenwriter.  I had a few screenplays optioned by indie companies several years back that never got made, so I dropped the idea.  As a kick, I thought using the medium of twitter for an original story with fictional characters might be fun.

Originally, the plan had the entire storyline of State of Normal taking place on twitter via the 17 characters – meaning all the dialogue would be made up only of tweets.  I believe State of Normal was the first time ever that a story was told only on twitter.

The first State of Normal tweet was on November 30, 2009:

First tweet

Twitter Lists

State of Normal was also the first time, I believe, that an original story utilized Twitter Lists. At first, Twitter Lists appeared to be a godsend, as a person could just subscribe and go from there. However, what I learned very quickly is that twitter is not the medium to tell a story that needs to be followed with any regularity:

  • The noise level on twitter is overwhelming and the story gets lost
  • Lists are under-utilized and no one checks them
  • Telling the story on twitter meant interaction with others tangled the plot
  • Narration and scene-setting were needed for transitions, which was difficult to accomplish

Transition to Blog

Thus, several hundred tweets later, I yanked it all and started over, reconfiguring the story on this blog, so everything is in one place, easily accessible and totally visible.  All 17 characters still have their twitter accounts, but solely for color commentary and interaction.  There is also a new 18th character, our narrator, Hewey, the Guinea Pig.

This will probably go down as the “first social media thriller that started entirely on twitter and died a honkin’ secret” because I don’t like marketing myself especially, and it holds true with this.  My attempts to spread the word are fairly lame.  First off, I am doing it because I enjoy it, so I guess if it dies in the shadows, that is all right.

Anyhow, when life doesn’t intervene, I try to get it all in.  I hope if you are reading this, you can spend some time checking the story out – or subscribe – or spread the word – or send me money. (The last part was a joke…)

~ Lindy King