Even people who are astonishingly intimate in their blogs still publish versions of themselves intended for public consumption. Everyone wears a facade in front of other people; that's just part of human nature.

So if every blog is at least some small percentage fiction, why not go all the way?

The Blog-Novel
A variation on the "letter novel" form, this is a work of fiction told through the online personal diaries of one or more of the major characters, revealed in real time.

There are some things I really like about this idea. First, it would blur the boundaries between fiction and reality. It would be pure fiction, but real enough to seem real. Ideally, new readers would be questioning whether the lives depicted are real or fictional (at least until they follow the link back to the "Blog Novel Project Homepage").

Second, it lets you explore how the characters see the same situation through different eyes. We don't just get into the head of one character (as with a letter or diary novel), but several or even all of them. Maybe we have cameos by minor characters, or even real bloggers.

There are also some unique challenges.

The biggest is, how do you compress time? In a usual work of fiction, the action takes place much faster than real time. That's because real-life relationships take months or even years to develop, but readers won't have that kind of patience. I think the longest Blog Novel practical (at least as a first-time experiment) would run over no more than a year. So whatever development and changes happen to the characters has to be complete by the end of a year.

Another question is how immersive should it be? The major story has to be sketched out in advance, but does it get tweaked to incorporate current events, or should it be something which can take place any time, to avoid being dated? Should the author answer E-mail to the characters as the characters?