Telling extended anecdotes over a series of tweets isn’t a new phenomenon, but something changed back in October when a stripper called Zola tweeted, “Okay listen up. This story long. So I met this white bitch at hooters.” “Twitter Storytime” is now a Thing, a new type of Content. There’s an entire Wired article about it. And the latest, greatest example of Twitter Storytime involves a writer, his dog, and the lady they found in the trunk of a car the other night.
Joe Craig, London-based author of the Jimmy Coates young-adult thriller series, was out for an evening stroll with his large dog, Harpo, when he detected trouble. The trunk of a nearby Renault Clio — a small, sporty French car — was shaking, and Craig could hear the screams of a woman emanating from it.
What does a thriller author do when faced with a real-life chance to be a hero? More important, what does his dog do? ‘Gather round, folks, it’s Twitter Storytime again:
Well, that was satisfying, and definitely worth a couple dozen tweets. (It’s no Zola story, but what is?)
Craig later expressed faux-regrets on Twitter about what happened, wondering aloud whether he had witnessed someone’s conception, or interrupted the conception of someone who will now never live.
You don’t have to be an actual author to tell a surprising and hilarious Twitter story, but it helps.
