The Future of Storytelling?
There's actually nothing terribly profound in this article itself, but reading it did get me thinking about various experiments I've seen in hypertext- and interactive-stories. Slate had an experiment last year that was interesting, but not profound. Farrago's Wainscot has a fascinating one going now--I've enjoyed what I've read of it, though the last time I tried to catch up on everything I'd missed for a couple of months, I got mind-boggingly lost in a labyrinth of cross-links. And Ideomancer also had something similar not so long ago, one that was a bit easier to follow. Oh, and one from a few years back that was set on a train, and you could click on the different passengers to see who each was. I forget the title, something with a number in it, though.
None of those, as interesting as they might be themselves, seems likely to change storytelling. But I am always fascinated with those who are willing to try and see what happens.
The one thing the article did get me thinking about is that all these experiments are basically textual only--the occasional image, but that's all. And I love text, so nothing wrong with that. But I do wonder about other ways to expand it. They create myspace pages for the characters mentioned in the article--I wonder if anyone's tried doing that with a fictional character from a speculative work. I could definitely see that appealing to certain readers. It could even be fun to see an entire pseudo-myspace network made entirely of fictional characters. I mean, will Frodo friend Paul Maud'dib? What message will Steerpike leave on Elric's page? And what kind of music does Ged listen to? (Yes, this is tongue in cheek...and yet, only sort of)
There's actually nothing terribly profound in this article itself, but reading it did get me thinking about various experiments I've seen in hypertext- and interactive-stories. Slate had an experiment last year that was interesting, but not profound. Farrago's Wainscot has a fascinating one going now--I've enjoyed what I've read of it, though the last time I tried to catch up on everything I'd missed for a couple of months, I got mind-boggingly lost in a labyrinth of cross-links. And Ideomancer also had something similar not so long ago, one that was a bit easier to follow. Oh, and one from a few years back that was set on a train, and you could click on the different passengers to see who each was. I forget the title, something with a number in it, though.
None of those, as interesting as they might be themselves, seems likely to change storytelling. But I am always fascinated with those who are willing to try and see what happens.
The one thing the article did get me thinking about is that all these experiments are basically textual only--the occasional image, but that's all. And I love text, so nothing wrong with that. But I do wonder about other ways to expand it. They create myspace pages for the characters mentioned in the article--I wonder if anyone's tried doing that with a fictional character from a speculative work. I could definitely see that appealing to certain readers. It could even be fun to see an entire pseudo-myspace network made entirely of fictional characters. I mean, will Frodo friend Paul Maud'dib? What message will Steerpike leave on Elric's page? And what kind of music does Ged listen to? (Yes, this is tongue in cheek...and yet, only sort of)
Comments
One thing I wanted to do with a webcomic (the character blog/myspace thing is so overdone in that medium) was a forum for character Q&A. People could post whatever questions they had for any character, about their past, something they had done or said in the story, whatever... and they'd stay in character, not revealing any secrets they wanted kept or even rolling their eyes and not answering if they chose. I thought that would be fun.
You could even have a Sim of characters and let others come and ask your Sims question (caveat--I know nothing about Sims except what I've intuited from things others have said, so I have no idea how/if that would work).
Honestly, I think the type of reader something like that is most likely to appeal to is quite different from the type of reader I am. But I could see it working, especially for the more pop-oriented fantasy and SF.
Here's a good example of character blog use in storytelling: there's a character in the online graphic novel Girl Genius whose profession is "Gentleman Adventurer." He hasn't appeared in the story in awhile, so they've given him a Twitter account.
Twitter.com is a blog site that emphasizes brief, two to three line updates of what you're doing at a given moment--perfect for the sort of knight-errant escapades he'd get into off-camera. His Twitter not only keeps tabs on his activities, but also provides additional insight into the breadth of the world they've created without interrupting the main plotline. I think that's a pretty ingenious use of the kind of thing you're talking about.
Sounds like a good use of additional media. I wonder if webcomics and other graphic-based work is more likely to jump into something like this, since they're already combining more than one medium to begin with.
Aw, you read some Girl Genius! Yay! I appreciate it. Of course, you realize that this just encourages my peer-pressure bullying tactics. :)