Tom Scharpling Twitter Novel

by Adam Reger

Yes, those words do all go together. I’m late to the game on this, but apparently Tom Scharpling, host of the Best Show on WFMU, has been writing a novel called “Fuel Dump” on Twitter, 140 characters at a time. Some generous soul collected these “tweets” in one place, but apparently he or she (understandably) got sick of it at some point, because looking at the Fuel Dump Twitter feed, the story seems to have advanced way beyond that.

To the extent that I understand the plot, it so far involves Michael Richards (a.k.a. Kramer) showing up at someone’s door with a shotgun, a Cigar Aficionado freelancer pursuing an interview with Kid Rock, the freelancer’s elderly uncle divulging the whereabouts of a buried treasure to an unscrupulous nurse and her beau, and Senator Joe Lieberman appearing at an aide’s house covered in blood and enlisting her help in burying a body in the woods. Listening to Tom talking about it, it sounds like he’s met the considerable challenge of making each “tweet” advance the story without being completely boring.