The Riderly Text: The Joy of Networked Improv Literatur

This essay aims to discuss literary pleasure, new media literacy, and
the Networked Improv Literature (Netprov). In particular, the author
will discuss the challenges of “close-reading” the Speidishow, a
Netprov enacted via Twitter (and a constellation of supplementary
web-based media) over a period of several weeks. In the process of
trying to understand the dynamics of reading on Twitter, the author of
this essay created a Twitter account, @BrutusCorbin, and consulted
with the writers about the plot structure. Through active engagement
with the fictional world, Corbin quickly became embroiled in a
sub-plot. Seeking distance from the active plots which Corbin was
involved in, his author created two new characters, @FelixMPastor and
@FrannyCheshire, to explore different aspects of the fictional world.
Pastor and Cheshire were subsequently dragged into the story, as well.
This piece will dig into the concept of the “readerly” and “writerly”
text as identified by Roland Barthes in S/Z and The Pleasure of the
Text and settle on a third term: “the riderly text.”

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