Writing a Novel on a Cell Phone
Printed books that were originally written as "cell phone novels" are
becoming bestsellers in Japan. In 2007, five of the top 10 best-selling
published novels, were written on a cell phone.
The cell-phone-typed books are mostly written by young women, in their spare
time on the train going to work. When finished, the writers post their
novels to blogs and websites. There are even websites designed only for cell
phone novels. And from there the interest grows.
The themes are mostly romance, and the sentences are short. They are, after
all, written quickly, by thumb, on a cell phone keypad. The plot and
character development also suffers.
The trend is encouraged by flat-rate packet data transmission by mobile
phone service providers. So emails and text messages from phones don't run
up the phone bills.
Would you read a novel on a cell phone?
