Projects 2013 > Writer on the Train > Journal
A third of the way through the project and it is still throwing up as many questions as answers. As you ask, here are four of the most pressing:
1) How does one write for this medium? To be an author is to engage in a direct conversation with another human being’s brain. As with any conversation, if you pitch it wrongly the attention of person you are addressing will wander and they will be lost, borne away on life's current. If they are hearing your voice through the screen of their phone, how many times will they be prepared to scroll down to refresh the page? Can you maintain contact through those finger-tips? How long before a new email or status update entices them away? We do not have the hook that a linear plot would provide to keep them on the end of a line – after all this is a sequence of texts that readers have to be able to board at any station, and experience in either direction. Any narrative arc is most likely to come from the route’s geography and the reader’s progress towards their destination.
2) How should the writing be delivered? To refresh your memory, we are using geo-location to trigger content as passengers travelling on the train between Bristol and London pass along the route. The content triggered in this way need not necessarily relate to place or geographical features directly – nevertheless this will be the instrument we use for pacing the arrival of text (and/ or audio) in the device. Our original intention had been to populate the journey with a variety of experiences that would keep a reader busy throughout their time on the train. For someone travelling the full route, the journey lasts an hour and 45 minutes. Inevitably, once the trip is completed two or three times the content of the app would all have been experienced; (three months isn’t long enough to produceWar and Peace). In our initial interview we were asked what would bring someone back to the app after they had completed it: our answer was that perhaps nothing needed to – people rarely read a book more than once, for instance. We are in the process of re-thinking this…
3) Who is the app for? Our first thought was that it could be used by anyone taking a train along the route, whether as a one-off traveller or someone who makes the trip daily. However we are now wondering whether we should concentrate on commuters as an audience, precisely because we know they will be around for an extended period of time. This gives us the opportunity to release material much more slowly. Amy asked a good question. What makes this app different to an e-book? Is it just that content is delivered via geo-location triggers? Where is the ‘magic’ in that? (Such technological innovations are rapidly becoming routine). If a regular commuter downloaded the app and knew that they would receive just one piece of content per journey, might this make the whole experience more appealing? The writer’s voice as delivered by the app would not dominate their train-time, just add something unexpected, asking a question, pointing something out, providing an unsettling or humorous ‘thought for the day’. This would make the app more akin to a podcast, a blog or a newspaper column that becomes a regular feature of people’s lives. While this slower delivery has advantages it also has dangers. Most of us have had the experience of giving up on a book because we do not find the time in our schedule to really get 'stuck in' to it... Perhaps we leave reading it until the last thing in the day when we are too tired to get past any initial diffiulties presented by the author's style or subject matter, or we leave too long a gap between readings so we have forgotten what went before... Might releasing material slowly create the same risk? That the 'reader' of the app loses interest and moves on to another passtime that takes up their whole journey, leaving no space for the app to occupy?
4) Words on a ‘page’ or a voice in your head? Early on we discussed the possibility of creating an audio version of all the written pieces so that those who were prepared to hear them on headphones rather than read them would have that option. Given time and budget constraints the easiest way of doing this would be for me to voice the texts. However I am aware that listeners might swiftly get tired of the author’s lugubrious tones in their earpiece, ad infinitum. In addition, I am interested in the idea that ‘Writer on the Train’ could become some sort of universal figure rather than simply the voice of the narrator/author. Using a variety of voices, including male and female ones, in the audio version might have a liberating effect on the writing. In my books I have always enjoyed employing a variety of different styles, combining ‘high’ and popular culture, mixing and mashing it up. Might this be an opportunity to take that tendency one stage further? Just an idea. As likely, I guess, to fly, or bite the dust, as any of the others…
Posted by James Attlee