[WRITING] "The interactive novel is an old-fashioned and unpopular idea"

[rfmcdonald]

Russell Smith's essay published in an issue of The Globe and Mail last month is certainly forthright. Is he necessarily correct, or is this simply a form that could stand better editors?

About once a month I receive an excited press release about a new “interactive” or “immersive” book – a multimedia thing to be experienced on an electronic device – and every single one claims to be the FIRST INTERACTIVE BOOK EVER.

I have been getting these, with the same claim, for about a dozen years now. I cannot think of a single one that has become successful. I cannot think of one that I have actually wanted to read.

They usually contain some kind of sci-fi or fantasy story, and music and video that pops up on your screen as you read. Sometimes alternate storylines can be followed. This is always supposed to represent an entirely new paradigm of entertainment and a vastly different experience from simply reading or watching TV or playing a game. These projects do not come, on the whole, from publishing houses: they come from individual creators or teams.

In other words, they are forms of self-publishing. Frequently, they come from people whose background is the world of technology or advertising rather than the world of art. Why do they, I wonder, persist in pursuing this old-fashioned, unpopular and unwieldy idea?