Neil Gaiman Crowdsourcing a Short Story Via Twitter

Coraline author Neil Gaiman wants to make a writer out of you.

His means for penning his upcoming project are as creative as the gems in his copious portfolio, only he can't claim all the credit for this one. Starting today at noon EDT, the writer began encouraging people to tweet in their 140-character contributions for his next short story, which BBC Audiobooks America will later garner into an audio book.

Gaiman (@neilhimself), who is already well established in the Twitter realm, will tweet the opening line and fans will be able to continue the story as they wish. BBC will log about 1,000 contributions into a script that will be edited and prepared to be read by a professional narrator.

Currently there is no talk of releasing the story in print form, but the audio edition will be available for free download at the BBC site, iTunes and other audiobook distributors before the end of the year.

BBC marketing director Michael Lee Cobb said the idea was inspired by Twitterdammerung: The Twitter Opera, a successfully fan-twittered composition that was performed at London's Royal Opera House last month. "There’s a misconception still that audiobooks are only for a small, elite niche of book lovers and we want to explode that myth and tap into the possibilities of digital storytelling in a whole new way," Cobb told Publishers Weekly.

Submit your bite-sized genius by following @BBCAA and Tweet with the hashtag #bbcawdio. Participation rules and regulations can be read at the BBCAA Blog.