Um … erm … yeah. I don’t know. If good fiction is all about character and story alone, then it’s a non-starter – it’s just clever, Andrew Dice Clay’s bit about Jack & Jill and the two-fifty. After a contemplative shot of Firefly iced tea vodka (I still can’t make up my mind whether it’s genius or terrible, but it is the only thing in the freezer, direct tequila donations to the contacts page), I’m resolved that I don’t like it. Great for clever opening sentences and great closing sentences, not so much a “story.” You fall in love with characters, and you revel/despair in their actions – mucking about with the language for the sake of showing one could muck about with the language killed horror fic in the ’90s – I like to follow the character’s journey, and most of the Twitter fic stuff I’ve seen is more about the exercise than the tale, IMHO.
On Microfiction/Twitterfic
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Since you’ve already stated you couldn’t quite get behind “The Shotgun Rule”, I assume you’ve tried and not enjoyed Charlie Huston’s Twitter feed (twitter.com/charliehuston). He specifically follows no one (and has less than 1300 followers) and posts nothing but a story, 140 characters at a time.
It’s good stuff, but I will admit to pasting together large chunks and reading it in one sitting.