We Are Spineless |

At what stage in the development of a project does interactivity begin? I am currently writing an on-line fiction blog and am trying to decide when to start inviting people ‘in’. You see, I want commentary on the blog, all in character, and the dream would be that people wouldn’t realise that they were commenting on fiction in the first place (or would realise but would choose to play along, eager to see where the story took them). Only, there are two issues. The first is that the story isn’t actually all that zippy – it can’t be, because of the format – and it isn’t a thrill-ride – I want this, after all, to read as if it could be real. And the second issue is getting people to read in the first place, and to want to interact with the story of that character’s life. And that’s a far, far harder task.

I was asked a few weeks back where interactivity began, and what difference it has with ‘active engagement’, and in a very short conversation with myself I realised that it began at point zero, at the decision to read something. Critics and writers debate the issue, and the designers of ARGs and web-fictions seem to fight to make their hypertext-heavy tomes stand-out, and they all strive to highlight the differences between what can be achieved on digital information that cannot be achieved on paper. But they miss the crucial similarity, I think: if you can’t get someone to read, you may as well not bother. Now, I have one major criticism of the internet as a presentation tool for writing: it’s vile to read through – and that may change in the futures with the advent of liquid paper (or whatever stupid name they have given it nowadays (I like to imagine reading a newspaper by staring into an over tray filled with liquid, and tilting the tray to turn the page, but that’s just me)), but I doubt it. People won’t forsake paper because it’s so lovely. It’s paper! So, how do we harbour that interactivity that we are so desperate for in our lives? When does (buzzword coming!) Novel 3.0 (that’s right, 3!) begin?

Well, life is like a Fighting Fantasy novel: you never know what’s coming next. Except, you actually do: in a Fighting Fantasy what’s coming next is another page, just as it is with all other books. And then another page, and another, until finally, you’ll reach the end, and close the book. Well, what is what’s been missing is the other bits? Here’s a basic interactivity lesson. By picking up the book in the first place, the reader has made a choice. The cover/blurb/marketing/word-of-mouth combo? It informs their decision. Opening the book to read page one? Another choice. Choosing not to put it down before the end of chapter one? Another choice. Fine, so the questions (“You have reached the end of the page. If you wish to continue, please turn over. If not, have a nice cup of tea and watch Entourage.”) aren’t printed there for you, but you can give up, stop reading. It is a choice. It is, in the truest sense of the word, interactive.

Sure, you could argue with that – it’s stretching the point, really, isn’t it? Is watching a film interactive? - but how is it less more linear than choosing which page you read next? In Fighting Fantasy, you used to choose whether to hit the orc with your sword or not, and you drove the story that way. And there was a right and a wrong answer – the wrong one would drive you to death. So you backtracked, and chose the right answer, because you wanted to know where the story went. It was linear as hell. If you chose to leave your character dead after page four, well, that was your choice. It wasn’t a good choice, I don’t think, as you lost the story. So, you invariably backtracked. And looking at the example of “interactive fiction”, as in, “You are in a room with a chair and a window to the North”, and you tell it where you want to go, well, that’s surely only as interactive as the writer’s make them? And I’ve been writing one – an experiment I’ve been trying – and it’s bloody hard, and, ultimately, just as linear as a printed novel (if not under a veil of free will). I mean, fine you give the reader/the player the chance to pick up a candle or not, but if they don’t they can’t see what’s in the room with them. Or maybe they pick it up but don’t light it? They have no choice, or they can’t see what’s in front of them. And you can bet that they will either have matches, or have been forced to pick some up earlier in the game.

So what choice do you really have? And why are these players termed as ‘players’? Why aren’t they just ‘readers’? And when you ask that question, where does being a ‘reader’ stop? Does playing Gears Of War – a linear story that requires that you fight a war over five levels with no freedom of progression or choice, only requiring that you use great hand-eye co-ordination to successfully shoot creatures – does playing it instantly drag you further away from this concept of an interactive novel? I mean, sure, its closer to a film, and I would never dream of suggesting otherwise, but that level of interactivity is insanely high compared to the non-linear choice of picking up a candle, and Gears is the least linear game that I can think of. So, what would be a true example of interactive fiction? Well, something like B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates makes a good case for itself (with the pages published unbound, and readable in any order that the reader likes, even though it is arguably to the detriment of the story itself). It was innovative at the time – I think it’d probably still be innovative now, were such gimmicks not horrifically overused – and it represented a true break from conventional novel structure. I imagine that, as a reader of the time, when presented with the novel, one had to sit down, arrange the pages, work out where to begin. Your choice to begin with a random page meant that you dictated where the rest of the novel went. You instantly made more of an interactive choice than choosing whether to blow out a candle when you finally make it through a door to the north.

And so, to the internet. Is it more interactive than paper novels? Well, it can be. It should be, if we’re honest. But for the most part it gets suffocated by grand ideas. I still pick up novels I have never heard of based on their covers, and I reckon I discard a third as many as I finish (usually because of bad writing, such is my incessant snobbery). But I am making that choice. I am putting them down, closing them, much as I would a film I disliked or a game that bored me. And I choose to turn the pages with the novels that I do persevere with. I make the choice to read chapter two, or to partake in the literary puzzles it presents me with, or to read the end first if I so choose (which I never choose, incidentally – why would you do that to yourself?). And that’s how I am most interactive.

So, where does Novel 3.0 start? Well, it starts in the spin-off. Jonathan Lethem has recently published a novel that is sort-of about filesharing, and he is sort-of making it public domain (in that, in five years, people will be allowed to use his characters and text however they see fit). Now, this relies on people liking the novel enough to want to use the characters and novel – and, frankly, caring enough to use it in this way when there is absolutely no financial or real-creative gain to be had in the long run. But it’s a noble idea (though so much of it is marketing and spin, I don’t know how Lethem will feel if his characters appear in a novel that sells better than his one has, possibly doing things that he would never have dreamt of doing to them). And so authors are adding non-linearity to their novels, adding paths that they didn’t see coming, and allowing the reader to wrestle more control away from their hands. But all these additions are still gimmicks. It’s more interactive than turning a page, but the ultimate choice, the choice to follow or not, to continue or turn back, that’s still the hardest part.

by: James Smythe