(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Guys, I need some help. I'm writing about how web pages and books are structured differently. It's really easy to give examples for non-fiction (I'm probably going to talk about feminism 101 and TV tropes) but I'm really struggling to think of examples for fiction, especially narrative fiction, because all of the best examples I can think of are, of course, fanfiction. I'd really like to find some stuff that demonstrates flexible narration, like Crysothemis' Fix or Cesperanza's Scrabble; I'd also really like something like Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making that includes links to all parts (instead of just before and after parts) on each page, like most Big Bang fics do, for example. (I feel like before and after merely replicate the structure of the conventional book.)

Comments

[caramarie]

Would IFs work? I think most you'd download to play, but you can get them in browser, or more basic ones just done with hypertext. Everything about which I know from when yhlee's written about them. ...I've played visual novels, but not straight text games. I think Hera might know more about them. But then where do you draw the line between that and video games?

Less interactive, but Juxtapose Fantasy is web-based original slash fiction – you sign up on a subscription basis, so most of it's pay, but the way the stories are produced seems more fanficcy than traditional print publishing.

Or, I'm sure there're online shared universes. And they must do wikis and stuff. I actually use a wiki to keep track of all the characters and everything for one of my worlds... I also read RPG guides for fun... I think that's something you could use for storytelling, but I'm not sure how much it's actually been done.

Not entirely related, but have you read Aidan Chamber's This is All? I think it would possibly work better as a well-constructed ebook than it does as a straight novel. Um, because it isn't a straight novel, I guess - but it does a lot with the going back and forward, reading two texts at the same time, having the protag's essays and poems – having an index!

Um, can you tell I'm procrastinating at the moment?

[labellementeuse]

Not entirely related, but have you read Aidan Chamber's This is All? I think it would possibly work better as a well-constructed ebook than it does as a straight novel. Um, because it isn't a straight novel, I guess - but it does a lot with the going back and forward, reading two texts at the same time, having the protag's essays and poems – having an index!

Actually, that's a really good example. My central thesis is that there's basically nothing a website can do that a physical book can't do too, but that some things - including doing back & forth etc - are faster/slicker/better on web than on paper.