Novels Composed on Cellphones Topping Japanese Best Seller Lists

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times has up an article examining the rise of blogs/novels that make the transition to published books. Recent Japanese best-seller lists have been heavy with these texts, many of them actually written on cellphones for a cellphone reading audience. Commentators note the popularity of this form of literature coincides with cell providers moving to unlimited data packages. 'The affordability of cellphones coincided with the coming of age of a generation of Japanese for whom cellphones, more than personal computers, had been an integral part of their lives since junior high school. So they read the novels on their cellphones, even though the same Web sites were also accessible by computer. They punched out text messages with their thumbs with blinding speed, and used expressions and emoticons, like smilies and musical notes, whose nuances were lost on anyone over the age of 25.'"

Comments

Re:cellphone novels

[ArwynH]

The thing is, Japanese is far easier to enter on a keypad phone than English, meaning short-cuts like you see in English are not required. In fact due to the predictive text software, using weird language slows down typing speeds. Predictive text software also works a lot better with Japanese than it does with English. Well used phrases and sentences can be reduced to just a few key-presses and the average word, around 3-7 key presses (~2 characters). The result is the ability to write a 30-50 character reply email, with decent grammar within 1 minute or so.

BTW that 25yrs age limit is way off-mark. The youngsters maybe faster than the rest of us, but everyone uses smiles, as well as a selection of graphical images available with the phone. I've even got them from my mother-in-law, who is way past the official retirement age.

Not difficult with the right equipment

[dotancohen]

I suppose that writing a novel on a cellphone might not be so difficult when your cellphone is a 3D mouse.

Re:cellphone novels

[jrumney]

The thing is, Japanese is far easier to enter on a keypad phone than English,

I don't think its really any easier, just that Japanese have to use "predictive text" type input methods on computers too, so its the same interface for them, just with fewer keys. For English speakers, its a whole different way of inputting, that many people still can't get their heads around. The fastest English txters I know turn off predictive text, because they think it slows them down, I think in reality it is just that they can't change their mindset from typing everything out manually to letting a dictionary do the work.

actually came up at work last week

[dancingmad]

Keitai shousetsu, or mobile/cellphone novels are interesting. I was actually talking about them at work last week since one of my co-workers recommended them for picking up the nuance on contemporary spoken Japanese to me. He did mention however, that a lot of the authors were high school girls, and so he personally found the novels boring. I ended up doing an amazon search on published versions of the novels and checking the library, both of which turned up several books.

The books aren't brilliant works of art by any stretch of the imagination, from what I've gathered, but are mostly for people to read on their phones when there is nothing else going on (train rides, etc.). But like my coworker said they are probably a brilliant way to pick up contemporary Japanese; the writing style is that of young people today and the kanji used are a lot less (because these are high school kids not Akutagawa).