Fiction: Adaptive Radiation

With the advent of new platforms like the iPhone and Kindle, fiction gets a new territory to expand into. People will try all sorts of interesting gimmicks to get a story sold and those gimmicks will provide fodder for the evolutionary process, most will go nowhere, but some will unexpectedly take off.

A few of these I'd like to try are:

• A novel that's all character descriptions, like five hundred character descriptions with the plot hidden in the trivia of their exposition
• A novel that only uses 100 words, not like a hundred word novel, like a 50,000 word novel that just uses the same 100 words over and over.
• An anthology of the same elements repeated over and over in various interesting ways. You could use the fiction machine to put together a list of elements you like, and have a dozen writers compose them in their own way (great for creative writing classes).

And now that I've mentioned creative writing classes - the wonder of low cost distribution means any group can get together and publish an anthology or a catalog of essays. 

• Your creative writing class could publish via Kindle and Blurb and people's grandmothers can get copies as NaNoWriMo gifts. 
• Your bible study group can publish collections of theological musings My Utmost for His Highest style. 
• Your maniacal PhD adviser could demand all her candidates keep detailed personal journals to be published as an memoir of research.

I never said it would be enjoyable.