The Future of Fiction
What advances will we see in the coming years in lieu of entertainment? How can producers create entertainment content that truly ensnares its audience in its mechanisms? To Aldous Huxley, it was the feelies. In Star Trek, it is the holodeck. Both of these are extremely immersive modes of entertainment that entangle the viewer in a shifting web of reality.
Figure 1. Image from IGN of speaking pane in Mass Effect My most immersive digital experience was the first Mass Effect. Never have I been caught in such rapture by a video game's story as I was during the course of the game. I didn't even bother to pursue many of the rewarding side quests as my curiosity about the course of the story fueled my actions taken in the game. I had to know what happened next. Most often in similar RPGs, my actions are motivated by idle curiousity and testing the bounds of the digital world in which the game takes place. In Mass Effect, I wasn't poring through chest after chest looking for some garlic so I could rid myself of this wretched vampire curse that I got after sleeping in a cave with a vampire. I was venturing through space with a crew of my choosing, a ship complete with my own bedroom, three different levels, and my own personal pilot. I was honored by others in the game, venerated as an acolyte for good, I undertook missions on my way to chase down the evil Saren who was threatening the safety of the galaxy! Every action I made was up to me, every word I spoke (Figure 1). It was a fantastic experience in which I was able to identify myself with the character I was controlling. I bring this up, because we have been playing video games with a controller with joysticks and buttons since the advent of the video game console. We have been reading linear stories, whether it be in print or digitized, for centuries. The narrative forms of these mediums has not advanced to more fully immerse the consumer. Mass Effect provided for me, just a glimmer of what is possible. There was a time in the early days of the web (1997), when people were experimenting with Hypertext fiction. These stories took the place of the traditional linear narrative and gave the reader a choice in what direction the story went. They were made of webpages linked together by buttons at the end of each page of text that prompted the user to decide what course of action to take, what character to follow, etc. Similar to those early text-based adventure games, except in a more restrained, less dynamic manner. It was an attempt at finding a new expressive medium within the digital world of computers. The idea was to leverage the power of computers, and all the different functions they brought together to form multi-linear narratives that could make the reader feel more a part of the story that they were participating in. Hyper Text, obviously a relic of the past, provides, however, a framework for the flow of these interactive experiences that computers are capable of creating. What I am curious to see, is what forms these future formats of interactivity will take. How will we more fully become immersed in fictional universes? This is something that has been played over and over in the heads and on the pages of most science fiction writers, but unlike Arthur Clarke's geostationary satellite, have yet to come to fruition. We have these immersive experiences away from home in theme parks, and places that can afford to host expensive equipment, but what form will these things take at home, in an easily affordable, easily accessible format? I think that the platforms are already there, we already have the tools to simulate virtual realities, but the software that these tools incorporate will be the defining factor of these experiences. As I think about these potential advances, I also consider what could go wrong. I think of the inevitable simulations that pursue purely carnal pleasures. I think of the immersive environments that negatively effect people. I think of the potential for using these tools for evil intents. That part is something that we cannot control, however. I believe that in crafting more immersive experiences involving narrative forms, we can infuse people more fully with ideas, skills, and experiences that (hopefully) can closely mirror our everyday existence. Ideally, these ideas, skills and experiences would be of a constructive, not destructive nature. Ideally, we could infuse people with positive characteristics. However, looking far down the road, into the murky shadows of the future, I have a hard time finding a sliver of light that would cultivate such ideas. Perhaps its not a shadow though, perhaps the world is better off with fully immersive violent and sexual experiences that can allow people to live out their sick fantasies within the bounds of a computer. Better that than blood drenched streets. THe decrying of new forms of entertainment goes back to the Reneissance when Cervantes decried the advent of 'silent reading'. He thought it could provoke insanity. So, as history shows us, there is no reason to fear these more immersive advances. We should welcome them, and not try and stifle them and allow them to fall in the hands of those that could care less, and only see the potential dollar signs attached to the technology. These ideas have been influenced by Janet Murray's book Hamlet on the Holodeck, and I only hope that we can find a way to leverage these immersive tools for good because their adoption is inevitable.