I recently posted about the end of the music album as the organizing principle which I believe has relevance to this post.

http://www.pampelmoose.com/mspeaks/2009/04/the-end-of-the-music-album-as-the-organizing-principle

For one: those sites that Eli linked us to are examples of the “literary art of the future” I’m thinking will exist. They are different in format and form from traditional printed books, and create new kinds of experiences, while still linking to the old tradition.

But I realized something in the course of commenting on Eli’s next post: books offer something that the Internet can’t. Serial posts and fancy formats are all well and good, in that they suit the rapid pace of the Web and modern life. Multi-media, interactive sites are creative and create a more sensory experience. Active engagement is great.

But a book is designed as the first virtual reality. It’s an immersive experience. Ideally, a reader gets drawn into the world the author created, so totally that they hopefully read the entire novel in one sitting. That’s highly unlikely on the Internet, given standard technology. Not impossible, but harder.

However, they aren’t just passively reading. Not only are they immersed in the fictional world, they are actively participating in CREATING it. The author might write the words, but the reader has to use their imagination. Words on the page suddenly become buildings, countries, people. Dialogue transforms into familiar voices, with cadence and tone.

Short posts are less immersive, and while the same experience might still take place, I think it might be harder to get there and stay there. I think eventually there will be technology (a superior Kindle maybe?) that allows us to curl up with an electronic book for hours on end without distraction, but we’re not quite there yet.

So, while I’m excited about online literary art that changes the way we look and think about text, I’m still passionately in love with the old way, too. I don’t want to lose it.

I wasn’t aware of Smythe or his conclusions. I came up with that idea in about four hours of thought and three dozen aborted attempts at reading blog fiction. But, I’ll tell you what, knowing I came up with the same conclusions as a doctor makes this functionally illiterate (at the time I dropped out of high school) former ward of The Cleveland Public School system tingle with joy.

I’m sorry for not taking part in this discussion earlier, I didn’t have enough time to frame my responses in a coherent manner.

But generally, Bob, you’re not the only one who thinks like that. James Smythe, who did his PhD thesis two years ago on blog fiction, came to the exact same conclusion: that too many people assume you can port the book directly from the page to the website, and expect readers to find and enjoy them. Not true, for all the reasons you’ve pointed out.

Secondly, a lot of effort has been put into figuring out the best way to present fiction online, or even (and Gavin would like this, I’d bet) how to mesh multimedia and writing together. The Internet is good for many things, and writing is good for many things … so the reasoning goes: what happens if we mix this element of the Internet with that (the forms of writing).

Some experiments you might be interested in:

The 21 Steps – what happens when you mix the tactile visuals of Google Maps with the prose of an action novel?

Dreaming Methods – what happens when you mix multimedia (in this case Flash games, music, movies and pictures) with prose? Or with poetry?

Gamer Theory – what happens when you mix prose with a highly compressed flash-based presentation format?

The Golden Notebook – what happens if you mix commentary with one of the postmodern world’s greatest novels?

I hope you find these examples inspiring.

The main point I was trying to make, and the reason I somewhat disagreed, is that I saw what you were saying about FORM and pointed out that the FORM of Internet text actually affects the brain differently than the FORM of paper prose. My argument is that by simply creating better FORMAT we can invade the Internet with the book FORM and improve minds for the better.

Because the Internet is largely designed for instant gratification, while books require delayed gratification and deeper thought processes. What is required of internet fiction is to bridge those two worlds — provide instant gratification for readers, while building story worlds and memes that stay in their minds, get them coming back for more, and build by accumulation into something larger.

One of the most interesting things about literacy is that, the more you do it, the more the brain is able to, and wants to. So hook them with the FORMAT that looks like their FORM, and trick them into the FORM that we all know and love. Because it’s still valid, reflects a large part of how people think, and in fact mimics thought process to a large degree.

Because the only way FORM changes is if thinking itself changes. And do you want a FORM of thought process that mimics the current trend in electronic prose, towards C U L8R, lol, MOAR of the same? I think the multi-tasking, engagement of the Internet generation is valuable, but it becomes more so if it’s coupled with long term, command function thinking — and that requires the FORM of printed prose.

FORM is a very serious business, moreso than just format. But art has been lucky in the past 150 or so years, that it’s had breakthroughs from artists who challenged the classical forms. Picasso, Pollack, Dali, Monet, all looked at the world in a different way than others, and found a way to express it, and then others learned from their breakthroughs. The visual FORM is more flexible and evolves faster as a result.

However, the written word takes longer to change. We no longer read hieroglyphics or scrolls, we read books, but have yet to evolve a new form, because that has been the dominant and monopolistic form of our education and culture. Newspapers, textbooks and novels all utilize it, and it forms the way we think. To change the FORM of text would require a new way of thinking, and then emulators to follow whoever had the breakthrough.

However, James Joyce’s style has yet to catch on. Experiments by Faulkner or Goulding were simply experiments. The FORM itself resists further change because it functions so well.

It is highly possible that the current technological changes of our culture and the Internet will lead to a change in the way we write. But I prefer the old method to the current new trends of text-speak or internet babble.

But the art form itself is emergent, and will remain so because the technology itself is still changing — I was just reading today that we are less than 5 years away from contact lenses that can display computer images on the eye, so that we can read the news, play video games, etc. while walking around in our day to day lives. When that happens, what else will change about writing?

I think we’re living in a time of experimentation, that will hopefully push the medium in new and interesting directions, as different as Jackson Pollack and Salvador Dali are from Leonardo DaVinci. But people still love DaVinci — so I hope that our many experiments in multi-media and style don’t evolve into one strict FORM, but rather the freedom for all of us to create and make new literary art.

To answer some of your questions: I wrote my first novel, No Man an Island, for traditional publication. About three quarters of the way through I realized that it was unlikely to get published, because it had an experimental approach — so I brought it onto the Internet, where some of it needed to be re-FORMATted and changed significantly because of the medium and because of interactions with readers. I think it’s original website, http://www.nomananisland.wordpress.com, has better formatting than its current home on my other site, part of what I was discussing with Eli and Chris. I also think that some of it might hint at the FORMs to come, but I’m not sure.

My current project, The Surprising Life and Death of Diggory Franklin, is less innovative for subject matter, but attempts a more serial format specifically for an Internet audience. I am constantly thinking of how to improve it for its audience, because it does require different structuring than standard book publishing.

So, I agree, things are changing in regards to FORM and FORMAT both, and some mix of the two might be what makes online fiction catch on. But I think a lot of the traditional FORM is still vital and necessary, and needs to be incorporated in that vision, despite the butchery that happens in text messages. I think this will happen eventually regardless of the fact that people currently choose books over computers, because paper is environmentally irresponsible and unsustainable.

Thanks, this is thought provoking and fun for me too.

There are a lot of points you made, and some good ones. There’s a lot to think about, but if I am reading your post correctly, the disagreement in the way you and I see the online narrative question comes between FORMAT, which you are endorsing, and actual FORM, which is what I am thinking about, and, if my understanding of art history is good (which it is, especially the visual arts), tends to be a more serious business.

Since you (in general) are writing fiction for a different medium — the Internet and smart phones or dedicated readers — the writing itself should change in some way based on intended publication method. You are writing fiction and/or narratives for a different medium, right? Or are you writing a NOVEL and re-formatting it for online (serial) publication? That’s the gist of it. When people write a novel, they by default think of book publication. I’m not talking about writing a novel at all. I’m talking about perhaps inventing something new, some new form that can only be conceived of with the new technology, a form that a generation of people will see as theirs as opposed to the previous generations’ veneration for books (which I prefer anyway). (That doesn’t mean the new narratives might not travel to book format, as book format seems pretty forgiving and in many ways superior.) I think what I am trying to get at, and perhaps failing to explain adequately, goes beyond FORMAT — ie serialization and short post length — which is the word you have been choosing. I think it goes into a question of FORM itself, which is a different monster. Hence, my argument for the possible re-conception of prose. This might be something as simple as compression; maybe not.

It seems to me similar to the way orchestral music was in part developed with a certain class of instruments, while rock and roll, due to a different set of instruments (being one of the influencing factors) created a different kind of music. Can you imagine Hendrix on a totally un-electric guitar, or cello?

(By the way, I never advocated a return to straight verse; I only meant to suggest that maybe there is something to learn from verse, especially in terms of pacing since people tend to read online differently than they do with books, as you mentioned. So why provide a bookish reading experience if the technology demands something different?)

You mention how a book translates or travels or doesn’t travel to the Internet? What I am saying has nothing to do with a book, but a narrative of length conceived, executed and written for the Internet and emergent technology.

I think that is the gist of our disagreement. Am I misreading your post?

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

Dedicated reader, why should it mimic a book? If you want to flip pages just buy a book.

Why do we assume a reader must scroll DOWN? Scrolling ACROSS implies a story unfolding through time, a timeline, and when you think about it, when you read a book you are traveling a timeline by turning pages.

If we’re stuck on a page-format conception, why not create a series of equal-sized rectangles on your website scroll them left to right and fit your prose into them instead of just uploading blog posts? Does anyone know of anything other than webcomics that have tried this?

Thanks for the back and forth, Gavin. Your comments and fiction have provided me with some ideas.

First, I agree. Online fiction is an emergent art form, a phrase I keep repeating (see my guest articles here on Novelr). That means it hasn’t reached its potential, nor caught on with the public at large. Ask “the man on the street” about books, and he knows what you’re talking about. Not so with online fiction. We don’t even have consensus on the name. Should it be “blook”? “Online fiction,” “web novel,” “web serial,” or something else entirely?

It is an undefined quantity. And, until more people are writing online, more people are reading online, and more experiments to cause both those things take place, you’re right, it’s not going to take off/catch on/become famous.

Because you’re write, long texts like epics, narratives and novels, don’t travel well to the Internet.

But here’s where I start disagreeing: there’s a reason for that, and the reason is the link between expectations, brain function, and format. It’s not the nature of prose text that’s the problem.

Studies and behaviour prove people will read online. People read the news, check the weather, catch up on sports, read gossip blogs, write and read diaristic blogs, check in with webcomics, and play text-based games and check emails. The majority of the Internet requires some level of literacy.

However, studies also show that the way the brain is used when surfing the Net is different than the way the brain functions when reading a book. Novels provoke parts of the mind that lead to concentration, long term thinking, logical processes and command function: the ability to step back from events, process them despite emotion, and make long term plans.

Internet minds develop multi-tasking skills, short term memory, and visual acuity. They seek active, not passive, engagement, a chance to be involved and have a multimedia experience. They are short-term reactive, and don’t use the same amount of command-function.

So, a well-rounded human needs both, if you ask me. So how can a book be translated to the internet successfully, if the brain functions differently?

Change the format. This is why the current most successful internet fiction is in the serial format, so that the text is in small, digestible chunks that satisfy the fast pace of internet surfing minds. That balance is different for each person, and very experimental, but it’s evolving. It’s especially different for generations: teenagers and twenty-somethings like reading online far more than their parents.

What helps is visually appealing layouts, the point Eli has been making lately, so I won’t repeat it. I think the other thing that will be incorporated for some fiction is multimedia: art, podcasts, music, video, flash media. The faster technology develops, the faster we’ll evolve.

But traditional books are unlikely to be replaced until there’s a electronic parallel that’s as comfortable to take to bed ;). I picture something similar to the thin tablets on Star Trek, but they’ll have to flip pages instead of scrolling down — that’s the principle problem, I think, for most people. They aren’t turning pages, they’re reading continually downwards. Again, expectation.

But I highly doubt that narrative verse will make its return. It served its time and place in the distant past because verse made memorization more possible for travelling bards. It achieved its pinnacle with Shakespeare’s day, and the dramatic verse of plays. No one writes like that anymore, but prose is everywhere. The printing press can be thanked for that — anything could be written down, instead of memorized, so beat/rhyming/rhythm became less important.

Evidence of this can be seen in modern poetry, which has virtually abandoned the concept. And verse and poetry are not as popular as prose.

I agree. I’ve recently looked at the sites you’ve mentioned and the cliffhanger-installment form obviously has a lot to be said for it in the online world. Maybe it was my failing in the previous post, but what I am actually thinking about goes further than keeping posts short. Short posts is one part of it — content obviously is the most important part — but the other part I am thinking about is formal in the the way new technology changes the way narratives are written. I’m thinking about a different way of structuring prose. Maybe it won’t even be prose anymore. Maybe it will be more like verse, but not quite verse. The way the Aeneid of Virgil or The Odyssey are verse, but still narrative. Maybe digital “novels” are not novels and writing them as such is a mixing of oil and water. Maybe digital narratives are something else, something that has not been defined, created or invented yet. That’s what I’m trying to get at. Maybe digital narratives have nothing to do with novels at all; maybe we are barking up the wrong tree when we make that comparison. Because, it seems to me that writing traditionally structured prose, prose that has developed out of a printing press and bound paper technology, may be part of the reason Internet published fiction has a problem making a name for itself. I think that viewing the Internet as analogous to prior forms of serial publication, such as magazines and newspapers, borders on a false analogy. Newspapers, magazines, and books have far more in common with each other and the way they are read than books, computer screen, and smart phones do.

Does that make any sense? Am I explaining my viewpoint any clearer this time?

Just a thought: It is interesting that epic poetry, verse narratives, romances, and novels can be published in book form and suffer very little in the way that we read them, but they don’t seem to travel to the Internet very well.

Bob:

A few online authors are approaching online fiction the way Dickens did his serials. Notably, Alexandra Erin, her Tales of MU is an ongoing soap opera, instead of a structured novel. Her series Tribe has a set word limit for every short installment, I think 365 words or something like that.

I’m writing “The Surprising Life and Death of Diggory Franklin” more like an old time serial movie — like when Flash Gordon would have a cliffhanger and next week you’d tune in for the next installment. If I ever collect it for a Lulu print edition, I will certainly have to edit the shorter chapters into a longer format.

I think short installments that get the audience to come back for the next chapter are best for online fiction, and different forms of that will become the norm. Reading an actual “book” is a different experience, and sitting that long in front of a computer isn’t the same.

The printing press allowed writers to flesh out everything, from description to character to plot — any facet of a long story which we refer to as a novel can be expanded; I mean, look at War and Peace, it never would have been written without the printing press. You could argue that the technology of a printing press demanded that the novel be invented. You could also argue that you could write even longer stories with the Internet. But the act of sitting down with a book invites that type of reading which is extended and leisurely. I don’t think the Internet invites the reader in the same way. Internet and hand-held devices like the iPhone sort of demand — in my mind at least — a different pacing, a different way of writing narrative, especially a long story. Dickens re-wrote his serialized novels when they were to appear in one volume, which seems to me that he was conscious of the way different publishing mediums change the way a reader reads. Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking something designed like the narrative poetry/romances that were common before the printing press might be a good fit for the new technology. Compression, not expansion of the narrative (which, in my mind at least, is different than just shortening or abridging a story). It’s just an idea I have had, and one I might be compelled to experiment with.

I tried to do a little bit of that on my blog. Trying to keep the posts small, even though I originally wrote the story a couple years ago with the intention of publishing it on paper.

I am convinced Internet fiction/narratives must be written in a fundamentally different way from book-published fiction before the breakthrough will occur.

Gavin: I can answer Wordpress questions too if you have them.

About the web fiction business model: I’m inclined to look at the webcomic model, myself. They didn’t start out making money. It happened over the course of a few years. I think that, given time, web fiction can too.

@Gavin, Chris: Wordpress.com only allows style sheet editing. I don’t think you can directly edit the .php files, so it is slightly more limited than a custom Wordpress installation.

It’s a bit of a moot point when it comes to No Man an Island, because that wordpress version has been finished for a long time — I did everything by hand, creating next/previous links and a Table of Contents myself. Nice to know a year later that I could have found an easier way. ;)

However, now that I know, it makes it that much easier for me to go back to Wordpress, if I finally make that decision. Thanks for that freedom!

Linking the chapters together appropriately in WordPress is as simple as putting all of the posts in one category and changing the template to show next/previous links only within the current category. Swapping them so the “next” link is on the right and the “previous” link on the left is just a matter of swapping the order of those two function calls, in most cases. In both cases, you would need access to edit the “single.php” template. Generating a table of contents is similarly easy, though a bit more computationally expensive.

What you’ll find in the stylesheets are the control for typography — font size, line height, bolding, etc. — and general layout. If you are already happy with what you’ve got, then you don’t necessary need to change them.

Email me if you need help.

Chris.