Mobile Novels or Cell Phone Novels are the first literary genre to emerge from the cellular age via text messaging. Phone novels started out primarily read and authored by young Japanese women who call this genre “keitai shousetsu” (mobile phone novels), on the subject of romantic fiction such as relationships, lovers, rape, love triangles, and pregnancy. However, mobile phone novels are trickling their way to a worldwide popularity on all subjects. Japanese ethos of the Internet regarding mobile phone novels are dominated by false names and forged identities. Therefore, identities of the Japanese authors of mobile phone novels are rarely disclosed. “Net transvestites” are of the most extreme play actors of the sort. Differing from regular novels, mobile phone novels may be structured according to the authors preference. If a couple is fighting in the story, the author may choose to have the lines closely spaced and crowded. On the contrary, if the author writes a calm or soothing poem the line spacing may be further apart than normal. Overall, the line spacing of phone novels contains enough blank space for an easy read. Each chapter sent out by text message on mobile phones contains about 70-100 words due to the word limitation of each short message (either in Japanese or Chinese). Most of the sentences are short, and in the form of dialogues. They are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications on a mobile phone. Cell phone novels often appear in three different formats: WMLD, JAVA and TXT. Maho i-Land is the largest cell phone novel site that carries more than a million titles, mainly novice writers, all which are available for free. Maho iLand provides templates for blogs and homepages. It is visited 3.5 billion times each month. In 2007 98 cell phone novels were published into books. “Love Sky” is a popular phone novel with approximately 12 million views on-line, written by “Mika”, that was not only published but turned into a movie. (taken from Wikipedia)

Five out of the ten best selling novels in Japan in 2007 were originally cell phone novels.⁽¹⁾

“Deep Love” the origin of the Mobile Novel

Originating in Japan in 2003, an author under the pseudonym of Yoshi, ‘published’ the first mobile-phone novel ever, entitled Deep Love, a story about a teenage prostitute who finds love through a chance encounter. Though mobile phones only process 1,600 characters per email, Yoshi employed this limitation to his advantage. Using concise dialogue, devoid of words too lengthy or complicated, he blended a rather generic plot with straightforward storytelling, attracting a new generation of readers who did not typically read novels. Serializing chapters, readers could email him their feedback. Incorporating their ideas, the story took on new twists and turns.

Three years prior, Yoshi had created a website providing content for mobile phones and added a template called “Let’s Make Novels”. His promotional campaign consisted of passing out business cards to 2,000 high school girls in front of Tokyo’s Shibuya Station (the center of Tokyo’s youth culture). (PUREMOBILE)

Yoshis novel became so popular that it was published as an actual book, with 2.6 million copies sold in Japan, then spun off into a television series, a manga, and eventually hit the big screen of movie theatres. The cell phone novel became a hit mainly through word of mouth and gradually started to gain traction in Taiwan, China, and South Korea among young adults. In Japan, several sites offer large prizes to authors (up to $100,000 US) and purchase the publishing rights to the novels. (WIKIPEDIA)

21 Years, 6 Months, 400.000 Copies

For several years now, young Japanese and Chinese girls have been typing their fingers wound by writing their own stories on their mobile phones. They are creating stories of love, desire, pregnancy, terminal illness or catching up on the vampire cult.

The writing is simple and the used language repetitive. Emoticons are used to economize space, big spaces are used between words when trying to accentuate quiet parts. In the dialogues of characters the young writers often use abbreviations known from short message texting such as “lol” or “omg”.

In 2007, five of the best-selling novels in Japan were republished cell phone novels. the top three written by first-time novelists.

The number-five novel, If You, was written by a 21-year-old, known only by her first name, “Rin.” It is common for cell-phone novelists to keep their anonymity, as their stories draw from personal experience and could potentially shame them. Rin completed her novel in six months while on commuter trains to and from school and her part-time job, uploading posts onto a website where readers could comment on the work as it progressed. If You received a number-one ranking based on online readers’ votes, and it was republished in paperback, selling over 400,000 copies. Most writers only dream of numbers like that.

Reason for popularity and prospects

Although Japan was the original birthplace of the cell phone novel, the phenomenon soon moved to other parts of oriental East Asia, and many of the online writers are university students. These writers understand what narratives will attract young readers, incorporating emergent events or trendy elements from teen culture into their stories.

Cell phone novels create a virtual world for teenagers via the mobile phone, or, more precisely, via text messages. As in virtual online computer games, readers can put themselves into first person in the story. Cell phone novels create a personal space for each individual reader. Paul Levinson, in Information on the Move (2004), says

“…nowadays, a writer can write just about as easily, anywhere, as a reader can read” and they are “not only personal but portable”.

The cell phone novel is changing reading habits; readers no longer need to physically go to a bookshop and purchase a book. They can go online using their cell phone, download a novel, and read it on their personal mobile phone anywhere, any time they wish. Similar to the e-book, its mobility and convenience save time.

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