A Newly Emerging Genre: X Fiction in English Literature

Year 2025, Issue: 4, 9 - 20, 28.01.2025

Duygu Koroncu Özbilen

Abstract

Twitter fiction, a recently recognized form of literature in the English language, is a blend of social media and traditional storytelling. It is brief but powerful as it uses Twitter’s 280-character limit to create impactful stories that appeal to its audience. The narrative framework followed by Twitter fiction writers defies convention; hence, authors need to be accurate and resourceful in their choice of words so that their plots remain meaningful within such restrictions. These tiny tales often utilize symbols, ironies, or texts from other works to represent multifaceted ideas in current information-overloaded societies. The easy accessibility for many people significantly influences the popularity of Twitter fiction enabled through social media platforms, allowing different voices to participate in shaping modern literature history. Moreover, this type also fosters live interaction between storytellers and their readers, creating a sense of engagement and involvement through immediate responses during communal discussions on various narratives shared online at different times. This article will discuss the features of Twitter fiction by examining examples of texts by David Mitchell and Jay Bushman, emphasizing this emerging genre's interactive nature, which keeps the audience engaged. By looking at exemplary works coupled with reader-author dynamics, the paper hopes to illustrate how much more can be done within these limits and broaden what constitutes literary work across media forms, mainly through Twitter.

Keywords

English literature, Twitter fiction, digital literature, micro-stories, social media narrative, literary innovation

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