A couple of days ago, I was idly browsing the Web, looking at different blogs. Generally speaking, people have a very limited conception of what might go on a blog. Personal confession and strident political commentary seem to be the dominant content in blogs, with a very few people experimenting with other genres of writing. I’m especially interested in “place blogs,” where the author of the blog gives you little portraits of where he or she lives. I like writer’s blogs, too, especially where the writer posts work in progress.

But imagine if Charles Dickens were alive today. I think a blog would be a great format for some of his novels, which after all were serialized when they first appeared. Which got me to thinking about blogs I’d like to see….

• A blog written by a fictional character about his/her fictional life.
• A blog by a real person about his/her travels in a fictional place.
• A blog of literary or arts reviews (by multiple authors).
• A “historical blog,” written from the point of view of a historical figure as if s/he were blogging in her/his own era, a sort of blog re-enactment; e.g., a Plimoth Plantation blog, a Civil War soldier’s blog, etc.
• A blogicization of Dante’s Inferno, or Defoe’s Journal of a Plague Year, etc.
• Or best of all, something that’s just plain new and different.

Strident commentary and personal soul-baring have barely begun to tap the potential of blogs. Dream big, bloggers.