My Experiment

The idea started when I saw an internet story which supposedly detailed a writing exercise done by a college professor. The story was cute and funny and the sort of thing that generally was totally made up except that Snopes actually verified several details of it, even identifying the teacher (Wiki: Snopes.com, officially the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a web site discussing urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other stories of uncertain or questionable origin. It is the best-known resource for validating and debunking such stories in American popular culture. Snopes is run by Barbara and David Mikkelson, a California couple who met on the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup. The site is organized according to topic and includes a message board where stories and pictures of questionable veracity may be posted).

This story of “The Tandem Story” had appeal to me because it was about communication and interactions and dealt with the sort of thing that we talk about often on the CSA Podcast – social networking and problems that arise.

I decided to try my own experiment (oooh, makes me sound like some kind of scientist… or jerk) using this story as a guide. To open up a story writing exercise to people I know through the podcast and Facebook and twitter, who might not know each other, and see what kind of story we could create. I asked for volunteers to participate and 8 people agreed to join in. I wrote an opening paragraph and sent it with the following directions to the first person and some general directions to all. This is what those directions said:

This is my experiment in creative writing and social networking. We are going to create a tandem story, written by people who may not know each other or may have an acquaintance relationship. In a tandem story, one person starts with a paragraph, which is sent to another person to add to. The two paragraphs are then sent to a third person and the process continues. You will NOT know who is writing the paragraphs before you or the ones who will follow you. If appropriate, I will add a concluding passage and then post the whole thing. I will write a paragraph and send it to the first person on my list. That person will add a second paragraph and send it back to me. I will then send it to the next person on the list. After they write their paragraph, they will send it back to me and I will forward it to the next person on the list. This is to keep the anonymity of the writers. Please make sure you read all the paragraphs written before yours so that the story has some continuity. However the story line with its twists and turns is entirely up to you.

As I write this, the story is more than half way completed. I will post the entire story here, and will pose some questions for readers to try and answer about it. I also will reveal to all, who the writers were although I will not pair writers with their own paragraphs. Perhaps an interesting idea would be to create a matching game with the 10 paragraphs and nine names to see if anyone can identify them all. Then again, maybe not – my experiment, my rules, my game!