Another blogging as Web 2.0 narrative

Postmoden Sass has been blogging up stories in unusual ways.  There's a temporal structure, with the onward motion of blogging entries organizing a life experience.  But Postmodernes Sprachspielen goes further by linking back to previous entries within new posts.  For example, this entry describes events, while linking to eight previous posts.

This is classic web 2.0 storytelling stuff.  I'm mindful of Andy Havens' important distinction between narratives contained by a single blog, and those spread through the internets.  I hope to address this in an upcoming post, but for now I want to emphasize the importance of multiple pieces of microcontent within each blog: individually addressable, metatagged, commented posts, serrated rigidly by chronological information architecture. 

(via Tim Bray)

Comments

[Postmodern Sass]

It also links forward to two stories. :-)

I think that was more to Tim's point. "Everybody" links backwards, and outwards, but I guess not a lot of people do what I do: go back to previous stories about the same characters, and link them forward to the next one. I've been told by some that that's unbloggerly. Akin to going back and (egads!) correcting typos without showing the strikethrough.

But then, I've never been much good at following rules.

Thanks for the mention, and the link. I will appreciate you in my right margin presently.

[Bryan]

P. Sass, that's a very good point, and one I'm adding to my Web 2.0 narrative list.
Those does seem counter to much of the blog ethos, but makes sense for the microcontent world of Web 2.0.

As you write, how do you conceive of upcoming future links?

[Postmodern Sass]

I don't conceive of the future links as I write a story, actually. I have certain regularly-appearing characters: Jack, The Viking, Angela, Boz, The Naked KnitGirl, my karaoke buddies. Whenever I write a story that mentions them (whether it's really about them or not doesn't matter, just that they're mentioned), I link their name back to the last story in which they were mentioned. So if you follow that link, you'll see in that story, that the first time their name is mentioned it links back to the story before that. And so on, and so on. I do the same with "events," such as hangovers, visits to Chicago, and hanging out at The Banknote.

Really, it's just the blog equivalent of that age-old soap opera tactic, starting the show with "Previously on All My Children..."

Then, when I publish a story, I go back to that previous mention of, say Angela, and link it forward to the new one. I also go back to the immediately prior story and link it forward to the current one. So, eventually, I envision all the stories linking forward to at least two others. Some already link forward to three or four.

And sometimes--gasp! horror! how dare I!--while I'm back in that previously-published story, I polish the language a little.

I don't know who started this sacred blog commandment that Thou Shalt Not Edit Thy Posts After They Have Been Published, but personally, I think that's just silly.