Monday, April 19, 2004
Digital Epistolary Novels
After reading an article in the New York Times, I was intreagued by the idea of "digital epistolary novels," which are essentially narratives built out of digital correpsondence (mainly email and instant messages). The idea is not new, but Eric Brown has created a simple but very usable (and trademarked) system for delivering such narratives. He has also launched his first DEN called Intimacies which can be read using the DENware and is a free download at his website (rather pretentiously [or is that ironically] called www.greatamericannovel.com). The software is very easy to install and use (although no Mac version as yet), and the story is surprisingly seductive. Their is a certain vouyeristic thrill associated with reading what appears to be other people's correspondence (the word epistolary, in case you're not aware, literally means "about letters"). And I'm not sure if others do this or not, but I tend to archive a great deal of my email and occassionally look through the archive, and it does sometimes read just like a narrative unfolding before my eyes. Although what I've read of Intimacies so far certainly isn't groundbreaking, the delivery system does make a certain mode of writing using fictional email and messaging very accessible and quite seductive. Check it out and tell me what you think ...
After reading an article in the New York Times, I was intreagued by the idea of "digital epistolary novels," which are essentially narratives built out of digital correpsondence (mainly email and instant messages). The idea is not new, but Eric Brown has created a simple but very usable (and trademarked) system for delivering such narratives. He has also launched his first DEN called Intimacies which can be read using the DENware and is a free download at his website (rather pretentiously [or is that ironically] called www.greatamericannovel.com). The software is very easy to install and use (although no Mac version as yet), and the story is surprisingly seductive. Their is a certain vouyeristic thrill associated with reading what appears to be other people's correspondence (the word epistolary, in case you're not aware, literally means "about letters"). And I'm not sure if others do this or not, but I tend to archive a great deal of my email and occassionally look through the archive, and it does sometimes read just like a narrative unfolding before my eyes. Although what I've read of Intimacies so far certainly isn't groundbreaking, the delivery system does make a certain mode of writing using fictional email and messaging very accessible and quite seductive. Check it out and tell me what you think ...
[Posted by Unknown] [10:04 am]
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