We have the power to write the most interactive stories ever invented. How do we do it?
Clive Thompson, one of my favorite web critics (check out his blog, collision detection), is asking the same question. He just reviewed Hotel Dusk, basically an attempt to write a fully interactive videogame private detective novel for Nintendo. I've never wanted a Nintendo more in my life...
Thompson delivers a nice history of interactive storytelling, and then decides we should stop classifying these interactive stories and just write them.
Dig it: "Maybe we need to throw out the words 'novel' and 'game' and 'interactive,' and think of new categories to describe these things. What makes Hotel Dusk cool is the otherworldly nature that comes from its mongrel heritage: The quiet, Myst-like pace, the sense of being locked inside a puzzle, the comic-booky quality, the sheer magic realism of watching illustrations come to life."
These questions don't just apply to fiction writers. Journalists have the same powerful tools. Check out Interactive Narratives for a collection of image and audio-rich blogs written by some of the most innovative journalists working today. The site was founded by Andrew DeVigal, who teaches web journalism at San Francisco State University. What can we do with these new tools?