I've always had a soft spot for side-scrolling text layouts. I think the way such layouts break "Skim-The-Page, Extract-the-Juice, Run-Away" behavior on the web is interesting. It focuses one on the text; getting people focused on a text is useful, if you want them to contribute to an ongoing story.

That said, the UI needs a lot of work -- obviously, because this is new and different and rough. Finding ways to balance your UI's dualistic requirements (reading vs writing) with the accessibility requirements of diverse writers on diverse platforms is clearly going to be one of your major challenges going forward. Good luck!