In protest at BBC Radio 4's plans to reduce its short-story broadcasts, Joanne Harris and Neil Gaiman are among authors joining Twitter users to produce collaborative tales

Authors including Joanne Harris, Neil Gaiman and Sarah Waters are teaming up to celebrate the appeal of the short story in a new campaign aimed at persuading the BBC not to cut back on its coverage of the literary form.

Rankin kicked off the campaign today, with the line "I woke up on the floor of a strange bedroom, clutching a single bullet in my right hand. I couldn't see any sign of a gun". Tweeters have 30 minutes to submit their tweets, with the best line to be selected by judges before the next line is tweeted. Sentences cannot exceed the 140-character limit, including the hash tag #soatale.