What is the nature of my PhD?

I’m doing a practice-based PhD in Creative Writing. For this I am writing a novel and an accompanying thesis of 30,000 words. To date I have completed a 60,000 word first draft of a conventional novel and I am now drafting a version of the story using Facebook status updates and other elements of Facebook as a narrative form. Because the story will be presented as a static version of Facebook it will be like Facebook but not real time Facebook. This is because of restrictions on what is required for a PhD.

After my PhD I intend to go further and write a dynamic novel using all the elements of Facebook narrative possibilities.

In the meantime I am looking at ways of describing the story in the concise way that status updates appear while adding to the narrative through profiles, comments, advertisements and photos. I need to update many of my computer skills, not to mention graphic skills as I can’t (for ethical reasons) use photos of real people. The biggest challenge is working out what information the characters would plausibly share on Facebook and with whom. My supervisor pointed out the other day that what is not told or shown in a story is as important as what is, so this may be my entry to writing in Facebook form.

This is a fascinating and challenging exercise.