@bettydraper hooks up with Abe Lincoln tonite

In a remarkable mash-up of 60s eras, @BettyDraper (1960s) will be joining @SavingLincoln (1860s) to talk about bringing characters to twitter. Tonite, 7 PM, Lincoln Center Amphitheater, 144 West 65th St. Hosted by Storycode, that awesome community of immersive storytellers. Disclosure: January Jones will NOT make an appearance. And neither will Abe.

i'm grateful that literature is alive and well and thriving in many forms

One of the many things I'm thankful for today⎯books. Just finished The Help and A Gate at the Stairs, both novels I was sorry to finish as I so enjoyed being part of their worlds. I read them, however, without turning a page, downed them while biking around Central Park, hooked up to an ipod. At writer's conferences, I meet people who insist it's not reading unless you're holding dead trees in both hands. But I think that's like claiming that you can't hear Coltrane unless you listen to him on vinyl.

Of course, like most avid readers, I do love to turn pages. I just read The Humbling and The Anthologist in that delicious, tactile, old fashioned way. But reading the old fashioned way isn't always an option. Or, even the best one. David Griner, an advertising executive, is publishing a relative's diary in the form of tweets. Each day, an entry from a farm girl's 1937 "Line a Day" diary appears and, since the dates are coordinated, it is as if you're looking over her shoulder. The reading experience is enhanced by the fact it's published in a way that allows you to read the entries on the date that she wrote them. (Today's entry: To-day was Thanksgiving. Got off from school. -Nov. 25, 1937)

Next week, Rick Moody (The Ice Storm) is premiering a new story on Twitter. "Some Contemporary Characters" will be tweeted over the course of three days on Electric Literature, starting on Monday at 10 AM. A preview:

There are things in this taxable and careworn world that can only be said in a restrictive interface with a minimum of characters:

Saw him on OKCupid. Agreed to meet. In his bio he said he had a “different conception of time.” And guess what? He didn’t show.

It's the first time a writer who's a name in the handheld publishing world is debuting a piece of fiction on twitter. I'll be tuning in, thankful that literature, despite doomsayers, is being given new opportunities to thrive. Happy holiday, everyone.

image via Black Clock

how to get a book deal in 27 days

Sounds like advice from your spam filter, doesn't it?

Be a writer! Move back home with your folks! Write down stuff your dad says! Post it on twitter! Soon book agents will be hounding you and you'll be inundated with offers from publishers!

Yet, it's proved to be the real deal for Justin Halpern who publishes Shit My Dad Says, a "column" on twitter that has been exploded in popularity since his first post on August 3. Why? The content is great dialogue. It's like Justin is repackaging Archie Bunker (remember him?) updated and delivered to a post-millennial audience.

Here's the concept: I'm 28. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says. Like:

I didn't live to be 73 years old so I could eat kale. Don't fix me your breakfast and pretend you're fixing mine.

When I used to live in Los Angeles, I used to step in human feces a lot.

My flight lands at 9:30 on Sunday...You want to watch what? What the fuck is mad men? I'm a mad man if you don't pick me the hell up.

Simple. Brilliant. Massively entertaining. Countless tweeters and bloggers have shouted out praise. Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus observed, This Twitter account has more character development than the last few movies I've seen.

On twitter, a quick indication of the quality of your content is a glance at your follow/following ratio. You hope the number of people who follow you is greater than the number of people you follow. Over 225,000 people follow Justin. Justin follows only 1 person. (@LevarBurton) (?) Impressive metric that says yes, quality of creative content still matters.

Now the LA Times reports he's got a book agent and several publishing offers. But it's a family newspaper. In their report, the site is, um, Stuff My Dad Says.

Congratulations to Justin and, of course, to his dad. Who doesn't read the site. He's not on the internet. He does have a cell phone, however. But no voicemail.

Why would i want to check a voicemail on my cell phone? People want to talk to me, call again. If i want to talk to you, I'll answer.

dispatch from the twittertainment frontier

Being a Mad Man on Twitter provides unique opportunities to explore the frontiers of twittertainment. So while AMC was whipping up impressive frenzy for the premiere of Mad Men's Season Three last week, some of us Mad Men on Twitter got together to prepare a "tweaser": a fan-produced event in a parallel universe: a twitter show in which Mad Worlds Collide.

Mad Worlds Collide was a first in twittertainment. A dramatic improv produced, created and aired completely on twitter, it bridged the divide between dimensions by offering tickets and real-world Mad Men-era prizes.

The concept was this: in the hour before the long-awaited Mad Men premiere, our new twitter character Radio City hosted a virtual premiere for 1963 film "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", preceded by a variety show in which @Jimmy_Barrett appeared "on stage" with stars of the film, @_EthelMerman and @EdieAdams. It was a scenario that allowed for the participation of all Mad Men on Twitter as well any fans game to get in on the fun.

We issued tickets. Prepared the venue. Sent out the word via tweets and Betty's blog. Even lined up some snazzy door prizes.

As showtime got closer, we drew up a timeline so that we could synchronize our (winding) watches:

9:00- 9:10 People hurrying to Radio City, waiting for show to begin or schmoozing in the lobby or backstage. Theater always gets started late.

9:10 Curtain goes up and Rockettes open the show. Lots of opps for tweeted thoughts from the crowd.

9:19 Curtain goes down.

9:20 Curtain comes up. A variety show is "supposed" to feature a lot of actors from the film. But @Jimmy_Barrett (pissed that Stanley Kramer didn't cast him) takes over the show.

9:30 Curtain goes down.

9:30 - 9:45 Intermission. People mingle in lobby. Door prizes are announced.

9:45 People go back to their seats, anxious for the screening to start .

9:50 Lights go out, in preparation for screening. Everyone posts scrowler which turns viewer screen black.

We crafted posts from RadioCity to act as MC to provide narrative structure, carefully timed and pre-posted to a third-party application which would send out the tweets at just the right moments. What we'd overestimated was distance between 1963 and 2009 technology. Pre-posted tweets from @_RadioCity didn't post. Why isn't my speaker system working tonite? (If we were IRL actors, perhaps we'd have known better than to put all our faith in the production crew.)

Without an MC, the "stage" turned into a free-for-all, truly experimental "theater": not only marvelous improv from @Jimmy_Barrett (see it here) but also fun, fast-paced, unscripted, completely organic and sometimes hilarious entertainment from the crowd. Which you can see here. Appropriate, we decided, to a madcap heist film. And to ground-breaking television drama. The audience certainly seemed to enjoy it.

live from Broadway! it's twittertainment!

The New York Times reports the first Broadway show playing simultaneously in theater and in the twitterverse. From May 12 to June 7, "Next to Normal" issued tweets during showtimes which appeared in the N2NBroadway twitter stream during pauses in onstage dialogue. The entire twitter performances can be viewed here.

What's exciting about this isn't only that it blasts open a new creative frontier (the 3 1/2 Wall?) but that it demonstrates that twittertainment can play a role in building audience. Before the twitter production began, the show sold $226,000 in tickets and filled 72 percent of its seats. The week it ended, the show made $363,000 and reached 99 percent of capacity, according to Broadway League. Some attribute the bump to Tony nominations. But as of this posting, the N2NBroadway feed has 572, 180 followers. Surely Janet Aguhob wasn't the only one who "saw the show because of the tweets...It was like Twitter was the appetizer and then I got the main course."

The idea of adapting the show for twitter was the brainchild of Situation Interactive, an online marketing and ad firm. According to the firm's president, Damian Bazadona, it successfully promoted the show without "banging someone over the head to say, 'Here's how to buy tickets'...The content itself was doing the selling for us."

Character posts were written by the show's playwright Brian Yorkey who was "skeptical when approached about adapting his play for thumb-typers, it sounded like 'a bit of a chore'." He soon took up the creative challenge, however, and began putting out tweets. Like the one during a scene when a manic wife is making sandwiches on the floor, from her humoring husband, "Do all wives end up sprawled on the floor making sandwiches for no one?"

Calling @BettyDraper.

(Thanks to @_EthelMerman for scoop from the dressing room)

10 rules of twittertainment I learned from @bettydraper

I was thrilled to be part of the recent 140 Conference in New York, a diverse gathering of social media players from around the world. (Video of sessions available here.)

 Illustrator Jonny Goldstein took marvelous visual notes of our Mad Men on Twitter panel. (Hope he got one of the twittertinis served by Frank Adman recently outed as David Benardo.) 

I had the chance to meet tweeters I've admired from afar. Including @SavvyAuntie (Melanie Notkin) who's just signed with TNT to live-tweet Saving Grace. And now that Brillstein Entertainment has teamed up with Amy Ephron to do a reality series based around twitter, I'm thinking maybe twittertainer will be a bona fide job description someday.

So, for those looking to hone skills, here's a few tips I've learned from @BettyDraper:

1. Reserve character names in several iterations. (At least @firstname and @first_name) 

2. "Adopt" more than one character so you can stage spontaneous scenes which won't work as well if you have to wait to coordinate time zones and schedules with other writers. Novelists and playwrights speak for more than one character. A good writer can handle multiple characters just as successfully in this medium. Imbue each with a separate personality as distinctive on twitter as it is on TV. 

3. Don't deviate from storyline. You're looking to extend viewers' interest in the show, not showcase your own scriptwriting talents. If you go off storyline, fans will feel betrayed. The most common praise from Mad Men on twitter fans is how good we are at staying in character.

4. Remember, fans play a large role in twittertainment. Don't broadcast show schedules and timing. Twittertainment works only if it's entertainment. Engage fans by interacting with them, not just other characters. Incorporate fan tweets into your stream. Build out your character with Linked-in, Facebook, even a personal blog. @BettyDraper recognizes twitter fans in some of her blog posts. She also hosts (virtual) parties in Ossining to which not only characters, but fans are invited.

5. You don't have to respond to every tweet. Only answer questions that appeal to a broader audience. And when responding to tweets, incorporate the question into the answer, so followers will know what's going on. 

6. The shorter your tweet, the more retweetable . Two of the most retweeted Betty posts are the blandest : "Tying a scarf" and "Frosting cupcakes."

7. Get the details right. Fictional characters must be perceived as authentic. (!)  Part of what makes Mad Men on twitter work is ferocious devotion to period detail. I was born the same year Sally Draper was, so am personally acquainted with the 60s, but I don't trust details of the era to the memory of a child. I have an entire collection of vintage cookbooks and housekeeping manuals so that tweets will contain historically accurate references like "Rob Roys" and "bluing."

8. Use Twitter's "real time" advantage to dimensionalize posts. Mad Men characters still immersed in the 60's "unwittingly" comment on real time events. On January 20, Inauguration Day, Betty tweeted "Shocked by a colored man swearing on television." When Matt Weiner was honored by the Clios in Las Vegas, Mad Men tweeted from the CLIOs in 1963, from the Waldorf Astoria, where the Clio's that year had a Las Vegas theme.

9. Writing twittertainment is surprisingly time consuming, requiring time for not only posting, but research and reading and monitoring tweet streams of other characters. Don't expect it's something you or someone else can do in just a few minutes a day. And if you're looking to hire, don't just look for a good writer. Look for someone energetic and outgoing who loves to perform. Twittertainment is equal parts writing and improv. 

10. Have fun! Once your characters take up residence outside the (tv) box, there's no telling where their adventures will lead them. And you.