It is a world of mini tales, where stories unfold in a sentence or two. Will Ramsey hears from writer Richard Sutherland about the art of fiction in the age of Twitter.
It was a postal delivery Richard Sutherland won't forget. Thankfully, though, the inflatable doll wasn't delivered to a neighbour's house by mistake.
"When it arrived, it was a very small vacuum-packed plastic parcel – with this face looking out at me," said Richard, half-grinning, half-shuddering.
The doll, it should be pointed out, was the type of thing you'd see hoisted aloft by hen parties, rather than sold from speciality websites.
And its purpose was artistic, rather than racy.
Since 2012, this Hull writer has turned his thoughts to an emerging, and tiny, form of fiction.
In the space of no more than 140 characters, Richard's Twitter stories have amused, spooked and unsettled readers.
The inflatable delivery was a spin-off from one of the 200 or so stories on Tiny Wee Fiction – Richard's Twitter feed – in which a man abandons the tribulations of dating in favour of his "previous solution".
It was featured in a series of photographs, two of which were displayed in last year's Ferens Open Exhibition, which saw Richard's stories turned into art by his friends.
For Richard, an affable copywriter from west Hull, the miniature tales point to a new and intriguing way of reaching readers.
"The way you access them is like fast food, but at the same time they are always written in proper English – it is trying to get the quality into very little quantity," said Richard, who has previously written and published a collection of short stories.
I replaced the floor with grass, the rug with gingham cloth and the cat with 1,000 ants. Yet despite my efforts, life still ain't no picnic."It is an exercise in being very concise.
"And it is not like releasing a book, it is the thought that some people will see these as it is an open forum – so you really need to make them count."
At a café near to home, the 32-year-old recalls his delight at being introduced to Twitter stories.
After stumbling across Very Short Story – a twitter account run by an American writer – he decided to have a go himself.
"You can read an entire story in five seconds, if that," Richard said.
"It is the same as with a one-liner in comedy, it is so short but it can really make you laugh.
"So it is the power behind a small amount of words when they are put together so well and so cleverly.
"I'd read this guy's stories and I would laugh, or find them creepy, or think 'that's a fantastic idea'.
"Each of them was like a cliffhanger that was never-ending."
"You don't need mayo on everything" she snapped. Ignoring her, I squeezed the last dollop out of the bottle, just covering the toothbrush
He binned the roses, scoffed the chocolates and screwed the heartfelt poem into a ball. From now on, Rob would stick to inflatable women.Richard admits the number of stories he writes for his site has fallen since his first was posted in July 2012 – back then, it was three a day, now it is one a week.
Part of this might be his perfectionism, with Richard admitting he edits things "100 times" before anyone else will read them.
But while the stories might languish in his drafts folder before finally appearing, he does enjoy the immediacy of Twitter.
"If I am on the bus, I can write one," he said.
"Sometimes I write them while I am walking down the street, although I have to be careful not to bump into anything.
"If an idea pops into your head, you can do it right there and then because of smartphones."
"You know," I told my sons, "there was a time before Call of Duty." Frowning they asked what we did for fun. "Crash Bandicoot" I replied.
It took many years and almost killed me, but finally I gave Sarah the moon on a stick. She quickly handed it back. "You call that a stick?"
ible!" Cried the scientist, unaware that he was forever trapped in a temporal loop. "The experiment worked! Time travel is now possHe's looking towards older forms of media when he reaches 250 Twitter stories, with plans to publish them in an illustrated book.
But in an age of instant communication, and supposedly decreasing attention spans, do these miniature tales point towards a new, alternative form of fiction?
"I work with social media, so I do a lot of online work," Richard said.
"I think people's attention spans might be shorter in many cases.
"At the same time, I think we are more open to giving a little bit of attention to many things – and a lot of attention to our favourite things."
What happened to the inflatable doll is, I suspect, a story for another day.
