I'll just throw a few questions out there: do you think these sorts of services are emergent properties of any society where information is a highly-prized currency? How might these developments impact storytelling, and the way people approach linear narrative? Is the long-awaited (but late-blooming) "hypertext novel" on the horizon at last?My answers are Yes, But; Not as much as you might think; and Definitely Not.
Yes, But, because information is only a highly-prized currency when it is possessed by a small knowledge class. As information becomes more available, its value actually goes down.
The impact on storytelling won't be as big as you might think because, well, that particular Modernist and Postmodernist bird has already flown. The 20th century was devoted to just such an effort and advances in technology are having a much smaller social impact today then they did in 1900.
Definitely not, because again, hypertext has been tried. The whole of the web has been a hypertext from day one. If someone was going to write the great American novel in hypertext form shouldn't they have done it by now?
More importantly even the youngest most ambitious creative writers are still devoted to seeing their words in print (old fashioned 15th century technology). Is it possible to read The Willows online in 2007? No, it is not. 'Nuff said.
Wither Hypertext?
This year marked the 20th (twentieth!) anniversary of the writing of Michael Joyce's "Afternoon, a story", a story I studied in a po-mo lit class way back in 1994. The promise of hypertext as story form basically predates Web 1.0 and hasn't really advanced since.
I think there are a lot of reasons for that, and none of them are technical or likely to be alleviated by Web 2.0 or advances in Kindle-style text readers. Text is still the easiest thing for the web to handle. Basic HTML and anchor tags are all you need. It also requires a fraction of the bandwidth that we all have now (as we eagerly anticipate streaming HD movie content).
The next problem is quasi-technical, and that's the screen. There are still a lot of people who hate reading things on a computer screen. Even those people (myself included) who have adapted to the demands of scrolling down through long blocks of text still have their limits. Short paragraphs, and cut-to-the chase writing work better than the more involved prose of a book. I also find that when I read an actual book, my eyes cheat forward to see where were going, and flit back to catch things. I also get a sense of forward progress by the weight of the pages on the left and right. None of these things are easy to duplicate in a browser or a hand held.
But these are just luddite complaints that say more about how we've habitualized ourselves to reading books (an unnatural technology to begin with) than anything else. So if we're not limited (entirely) by technology, what is it that has prevented all these wonderful advances from revolutionizing the way people read and write stories? I think the problem must be in the writing itself, and I think the answer is that writing a fully formed story, with rounded characters is hard enough without ceding control of the plot, the story, and the sequence of events over to the reader. It may be impossible.
Is A Hypertext Still A Story?
At the very least, it seems to violate every rule you've learned or gleaned in every creative writing course, writing for dummies book, and how to get published without really trying seminar. My sense is that event order matters. Even if the story is non-linear. Even if it's abstract. The juxtaposition of ideas and images still matters and requires the author to determine how the text should be read. Otherwise, what do you have? Characters without a point of view, a motivation, or a goal. Plots where actions take place in a vacuum and decisions have no outcome or consequence.
Experiment all you like, but at the end of the day, a story is still the mind's attempt at solving a problem, at answering or asking an interesting question. In traditional storytelling the author guides the reader down all the various paths, presenting alternatives, answering objections, until at the end of the story we reach what ought to feel like an inevitable conclusion.
It's not clear to me that we know how to tell stories (much less read them) when we completely abandon notions of sequential cause and effect. The template for holistic, non-rational, non-linear, emotional, intuitive story telling will need to be found first.
I think the unintended consequence of Google and Web 2.0 will be the end of the epic encyclopedic novel. Books where authors show-off the depth and breadth of their knowledge on obscure topics are no longer necessary in a world where every piece of trivia is a Wiki search away.
The End of Information Scarcity
What Google ultimately represents is the end of information scarcity; a world where no-one is more knowledgeable on any given topic than anyone else; a world where being an expert, being a connoisseur, being an obsessed fan is open to everyone, and therefore offers no competitive advantage in the marketplace of ideas.
Stories will have to be better written, contain better and richer language, and place even more emphasis on character and emotion. They will have to try to tell us something we don't already know. Imagine that: a literature devoid of literary allusiveness and intertextuality, because everyone will have instant access to the same memes you do. No more retro-futurisistic, hyper-textual, neo-Victorian, pastiches. No more post-modern footnoted, endnoted, meta-commentaried, multi-lingual, split-paged narratives. Everyone will always already be in on the joke.
No, to tell a story you'll actually have to have something to say. In a Wiki world, it only gets harder.
