August 24th, 2009 / 12:43 pm
Presses

TripleQuick Fiction

tqf3up

Featherproof is creating an iPhone app for flash called “TripleQuick Fiction.” Each story will be 333 words long or fewer, and from looking at the part of the image underneath Shane Jones’s barrelchest, I gather that readers can vote on each piece’s quality by choosing either “Good Egg” or “Rotten Egg.” To me that’s the coolest thing about the idea. Let’s let the techie dudes have a say in what works for li’l lit.

You heard it at the Examiner first, with this keen and clunky description of short fiction: “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.” Now with mobile technology, you can let TripleQuick take you to one world while the bus takes you to work.

I’m really excited about this, even though I don’t have an iPhone. I have a G1. What are the chances some ebookish developer gets motivated enough to set this up for Android? What about people with just regular cell phones, the kind with the hinge? Are they gonna get illiterate?

What’s next? What the hell is going to happen next?

41 Comments

  1. sam pink

      i want to set up a deal with a phone company where i am paid to text people threats and other shit to them at random

  2. sam pink

      i want to set up a deal with a phone company where i am paid to text people threats and other shit to them at random

  3. Angi

      I’m excited about this. Except there’s no way I will compose and submit anything via my iPod, I am not such a fan of typing on that thing.

  4. Angi

      I’m excited about this. Except there’s no way I will compose and submit anything via my iPod, I am not such a fan of typing on that thing.

  5. davidpeak

      i like the way featherproof is always thinking forward.

      I have a blackberry because i’m all business. none of those apps distractions. just business emails. maybe someone could just email me stories and i could read them?

  6. davidpeak

      i like the way featherproof is always thinking forward.

      I have a blackberry because i’m all business. none of those apps distractions. just business emails. maybe someone could just email me stories and i could read them?

  7. Mike

      This is great, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s carrying a book onto public transportation. I mean it’s heavy for one thing, and also people look at you like “hey, Mr. Smartypants who can read words, how’d you like to hand over your wallet or get nailed in the head with a brick?” Now they’ll just assume I’m playing DinoQuake or checking my stock portfolio but really I’ll be reading in secret!

      Sarcasm aside, I guess this is a perfectly fine idea.

  8. Mike

      This is great, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s carrying a book onto public transportation. I mean it’s heavy for one thing, and also people look at you like “hey, Mr. Smartypants who can read words, how’d you like to hand over your wallet or get nailed in the head with a brick?” Now they’ll just assume I’m playing DinoQuake or checking my stock portfolio but really I’ll be reading in secret!

      Sarcasm aside, I guess this is a perfectly fine idea.

  9. Henry Knuckles

      Anyone sincerely feel like this? Give me your address.

      Mike do you want me to nail you in the head with a brick just because? Is that a desire of yours.

  10. Henry Knuckles

      Anyone sincerely feel like this? Give me your address.

      Mike do you want me to nail you in the head with a brick just because? Is that a desire of yours.

  11. Adam R

      When I said clunky I should have said “beautifully clunky.” I love that sentence in the Examiner.

  12. Adam R

      When I said clunky I should have said “beautifully clunky.” I love that sentence in the Examiner.

  13. audri

      if my mobile phone was internet ready, in colour, capable of making polyphonic tones, and also not a motorola dynatac, i would buy this.

  14. audri

      if my mobile phone was internet ready, in colour, capable of making polyphonic tones, and also not a motorola dynatac, i would buy this.

  15. jereme

      i think this is a really cool idea from featherproof. i commend it.

      but i am curious adam why do you think it is a good idea? aren’t you the guy who doesn’t believe in flash fiction? so obviously you wouldn’t really be behind fiction limited to 333 words.

      i have to question your integrity on this one.

  16. jereme

      i think this is a really cool idea from featherproof. i commend it.

      but i am curious adam why do you think it is a good idea? aren’t you the guy who doesn’t believe in flash fiction? so obviously you wouldn’t really be behind fiction limited to 333 words.

      i have to question your integrity on this one.

  17. Adam R

      I dont take a hard line on that, jereme. What are you referring to?

  18. Adam R

      I dont take a hard line on that, jereme. What are you referring to?

  19. Dan Brady
  20. Dan Brady
  21. Rozi Jovanovic

      what are your thoughts on flash fiction Adam?

  22. Rozi Jovanovic

      what are your thoughts on flash fiction Adam?

  23. Adam R

      In a post at my blog I wrote that I have trouble with it, but concluded that “there is something more than nothing happening in good microfiction, and it is this: beauty. “

  24. Adam R

      In a post at my blog I wrote that I have trouble with it, but concluded that “there is something more than nothing happening in good microfiction, and it is this: beauty. “

  25. Matthias Rascher

      The next step has already happened: Matt Stewart is publishing his novel “The French Revolution” in 3,700 tweets and 480,000 characters on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thefrenchrev
      I’m still not sure if I like this or not. It’s a bloody nuisance to read, anyway. And fewer than 1,000 followers may not quite be the audience Matt was hoping to reach.

  26. Matthias Rascher

      The next step has already happened: Matt Stewart is publishing his novel “The French Revolution” in 3,700 tweets and 480,000 characters on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thefrenchrev
      I’m still not sure if I like this or not. It’s a bloody nuisance to read, anyway. And fewer than 1,000 followers may not quite be the audience Matt was hoping to reach.

  27. Adam R

      I thought “Twit-lit” kinda died when NPR stopped talking about it in April. Also, something I like about creating an app is that it is developing its own format for a genre rather than developing a genre for a borrowed format.

  28. Adam R

      I thought “Twit-lit” kinda died when NPR stopped talking about it in April. Also, something I like about creating an app is that it is developing its own format for a genre rather than developing a genre for a borrowed format.

  29. Amber

      I am so pumped. Smart phones will help keep literature alive. And I don’t say that JUST to justify my intense love of products and apps–but also because I believe it. Mostly.

  30. Amber

      I am so pumped. Smart phones will help keep literature alive. And I don’t say that JUST to justify my intense love of products and apps–but also because I believe it. Mostly.

  31. Matthias Rascher

      When I look at my tech-savvy and smart-phone-addicted students on the one hand and the ever-increasing difficulty to make them read literature on the other I have to conclude that you are quite right.

  32. Matthias Rascher

      When I look at my tech-savvy and smart-phone-addicted students on the one hand and the ever-increasing difficulty to make them read literature on the other I have to conclude that you are quite right.

  33. Matthias Rascher
  34. Matthias Rascher
  35. Matthias Rascher

      Hm, put like this I have to admit it does sound rather intriguing.

  36. Matthias Rascher

      Hm, put like this I have to admit it does sound rather intriguing.

  37. Vaughan Simons

      I’m glad to see the general support for this venture by Featherproof. As someone who (in real life, to pay the bills) works on the web and thus is extremely interested in new technology, I’ve been rather dismayed by the sometimes rather luddite attitude of the indie lit scene. A lot of it takes place on the web, yes, but often that seems about as far as it goes, and there remains a slavish desire to see things in print. Print is still best, yes, but whether we like it or not, stuff like e-book readers and e-books for mobile phones are going to be of increasing importance. And if they encourage more people to read, we should be engaging with them too.

  38. Vaughan Simons

      I’m glad to see the general support for this venture by Featherproof. As someone who (in real life, to pay the bills) works on the web and thus is extremely interested in new technology, I’ve been rather dismayed by the sometimes rather luddite attitude of the indie lit scene. A lot of it takes place on the web, yes, but often that seems about as far as it goes, and there remains a slavish desire to see things in print. Print is still best, yes, but whether we like it or not, stuff like e-book readers and e-books for mobile phones are going to be of increasing importance. And if they encourage more people to read, we should be engaging with them too.

  39. Friday Link Love 8/28 | Brad’s Reader

      […] TripleQuick Fiction […]

  40. iPhone Development

      I really like the Triple Quick features where you have the ability to compose and submit your own stories, right on the iPhone and you can also rate stories submitted by others. Very nice application. Thanks for sharing the review.

  41. zusya

      seriously, android this.

      the second apple’s content police notice even the possibility of any of these micro-tales alluding to sex, it might get pulled.