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Interactive books
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From: Paul Fleischman <fleischman>
Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 08:41:04 -0700
I came in at the end of your discussion of Radical Change, hadn't seen the term before, but gather that the question is whether the book of the future will be assembled or co-created by the reader--just as the bookstore of the future will not only have a coffee bar, but laundromat, travel agency, and Olympic pool. With regard to my own books, the reader isn't put in the author's role, as in a choose-your-own adventure or an interactive novel on the Internet. Mine are collaborative rather than interactive, designed for multiple readers, not writers. If this qualifies as Radical Change, it proves yet again that everything old is new again. I have a 100-year-old book of parlor games stuffed with the sort of group acting games that entertained many generations, then were forgotten once radio and TV arrived. My own source of inspiration in large part was my father, Sid Fleischman, reading his books aloud to the family as they were written, chapter by chapter. It was living room theater, small scale, no props or rehearsals required. My two-voiced poems and readers' theater books all came out of that experience, along with a forthcoming collection of poems for four voices and a picture book I'm working on now whose story is accompanied by a series of string figures. No electricity required, much less a Pentium chip--just a group willing to make its own entertainment. TV has made most of the country forget the joy of doing so. It's wonderful hearing what fun people have had with JOYFUL NOISE. The surprise in their voices sometimes suggests that the experience of their families entertaining themselves was entirely novel.
As a reader, I don't mind assembling the parts of the story, as is required in BULL RUN and SEEDFOLKS and THE VIEW FROM SATURDAY. I do, however, prefer the book to be written by the writer, not verbman at blab.net et al. I suspect that the interactive computer novel, like the choose-your-own adventure, will have no lasting impact. Habits learned at the computer, however, become pervasive. I've discovered that some kids, accustomed to point-and-click navigation, read BULL RUN nonsequentially, picking a character and reading all his or her speeches, then going back to the beginning and picking a different character. As a believer in the linear narrative, I was taken aback at the thought of my carefully constructed story disassembled in this way. In A FATE TOTALLY WORSE THAN DEATH I had a character flipping through a magazine from the back, finally arriving at long last at the table of contents. Probably only someone who grew up turning pages, not clicking a mouse, would find that slightly comical.
Paul Fleischman
Received on Wed 28 May 1997 10:41:04 AM CDT
Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 08:41:04 -0700
I came in at the end of your discussion of Radical Change, hadn't seen the term before, but gather that the question is whether the book of the future will be assembled or co-created by the reader--just as the bookstore of the future will not only have a coffee bar, but laundromat, travel agency, and Olympic pool. With regard to my own books, the reader isn't put in the author's role, as in a choose-your-own adventure or an interactive novel on the Internet. Mine are collaborative rather than interactive, designed for multiple readers, not writers. If this qualifies as Radical Change, it proves yet again that everything old is new again. I have a 100-year-old book of parlor games stuffed with the sort of group acting games that entertained many generations, then were forgotten once radio and TV arrived. My own source of inspiration in large part was my father, Sid Fleischman, reading his books aloud to the family as they were written, chapter by chapter. It was living room theater, small scale, no props or rehearsals required. My two-voiced poems and readers' theater books all came out of that experience, along with a forthcoming collection of poems for four voices and a picture book I'm working on now whose story is accompanied by a series of string figures. No electricity required, much less a Pentium chip--just a group willing to make its own entertainment. TV has made most of the country forget the joy of doing so. It's wonderful hearing what fun people have had with JOYFUL NOISE. The surprise in their voices sometimes suggests that the experience of their families entertaining themselves was entirely novel.
As a reader, I don't mind assembling the parts of the story, as is required in BULL RUN and SEEDFOLKS and THE VIEW FROM SATURDAY. I do, however, prefer the book to be written by the writer, not verbman at blab.net et al. I suspect that the interactive computer novel, like the choose-your-own adventure, will have no lasting impact. Habits learned at the computer, however, become pervasive. I've discovered that some kids, accustomed to point-and-click navigation, read BULL RUN nonsequentially, picking a character and reading all his or her speeches, then going back to the beginning and picking a different character. As a believer in the linear narrative, I was taken aback at the thought of my carefully constructed story disassembled in this way. In A FATE TOTALLY WORSE THAN DEATH I had a character flipping through a magazine from the back, finally arriving at long last at the table of contents. Probably only someone who grew up turning pages, not clicking a mouse, would find that slightly comical.
Paul Fleischman
Received on Wed 28 May 1997 10:41:04 AM CDT
