The Twitter of Oz - Behind the Scenes Post #1

The following is Part One in a series documenting the making of The Twitter of Oz -- a modernized retelling of The Wizard of Oz through Twitter. Each of the main characters has their own Twitter feed and will tweet their experiences in real time as they try to get a Brain, a Heart, Courage and a Home.

I'm working on this at Visual Goodness where I'm Creative Manager. These are my notes as the world unfolds on Twitter.

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Publishing Setup:
- Multiple Twitter accounts
- Managed through a single Hootsuite account
- Tweets written ahead of time with scheduled pub dates & times

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All of the characters' first tweets begin with a statement of love:

Dorothy "i luv toto, but i hate kansas"
Wiicked Witch of the West "I'm in love!!"
Tin Man "The song says it all "I give her all my love That's all I do And if you saw my love You'd love her too I love her""
The Wizard "I am in love."
Glinda the Good Witch (of the North) "<3 my laptop <3 http://ow.ly/Iqn"
The Cowardly Lion Tweet #1 -- "I love to scare the crap out of the squirrels in the morning." Tweet #2 -- "Okay, maybe not squirrels. Chipmunks, maybe. Or maybe ants. But they don't scare very easy either. Or at least they don't show it."

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I decided to make the Wizard not Tweet on Sunday for a couple reasons. Less work. Also supports his conservative views.

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The TinMan is still human when we start. He's married. He's in love with another woman. He quotes Beatles' lyrics.

He makes a reference "Norwegian Wood" (2009.03.07 - SAT 7p). The song was originally inspired by John Lennon's extramarital affairs. John Lennon said he felt like Cynthia had tricked him into marrying him. He said:

"Norwegian Wood" is my song completely. It was about an affair I was having. I was very careful and paranoid because I didn't want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household. I'd always had some kind of affairs going on, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair ... but in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn't tell. But I can't remember any specific woman it had to do with.

As you'll soon see, Tin Man's Twitter feed will quickly become his own "Norwegian Wood"

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I checked the weather in Kansas on Dorothy's first day of tweeting. Coincidentally it was a day of light rain. She complains that she either wants it to outright rain or be bone dry. She hates meek weather. Coincidental foreshadowing.

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I'm trying to give each character a style of writing -- or typing at least.

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Dorothy is a composite of my wife's younger cousins: Jenn, Melissa, Michelle, Andrea, Angela and Kim with a sprinkling of a few my own family members: Mel, Lisa and Jackie. Their tone of voice, concerns and values will be the key to me sounding like a young woman longing for a place she sometimes thinks she hates most: Home.

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I'm currently working on getting all of the Twitter feeds onto a single page. Hopefully it'll be up tomorrow? Ha!

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The Scarecrow will be the last character to go live. In the original book he was only one day old when Dorothy found him.

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