>As I said in another post, if the writer has a point he/she wants to make
>(a la "art"), it seems to me that the fact that there is interaction between
>writer and reader inevitably gets in the way of what the writer wants to say.
>It interrupts the flow of thoughts and the development of ideas. It turns it
>into a game. IF is *not* "either just words or a combination of words and
>pictures" -- that's what 'F' is. You've overlooked the 'I'. As to your
>question, I certainly have never seen IF that I would consider "art"
>(although I now regret having introduced this term). But I simply don't see
>how it could work. So I'll just repeat a question I asked elsewhere - what can
>you do with IF that you can't do with 'F'?
There are two easy answers to your question. One is: "I don't know, any
more than Thomas Edison would have known if you had asked him what
advantages his flickering, black-and-white, silent motion picture had
over solid, color, speaking live actors."
A slightly better answer is: you can't do anything with IF that you can't
do with F. All that any art form can do is draw you in, make you care,
and, possibly, change the way you view the world.
But your question is a thoughtful one, and it deserves more than an easy
response. So, let me say that, although I don't think that IF can do
anything that F can't do--just like fiction can't do anything that movies
can't do--I believe that every art form has its own advantages, and its
own ways of accomplishing the goals of all art. Here are a few of the
ways that IF can accomplish its goals in ways different than those of
traditional fiction:
1) Personalization. In fiction, the reader has only a few simple ways of
personalizing their experience. They can skip the parts they find boring.
They can write the publisher and demand to have offensive passages
removed. They can chose not to read it. (Unfortunately, more and more
readers seem to be opting for the last of these options. But that's
another story.) With interactive fiction, the focus of the story can be
determined in collaboration between the author and the reader. In The One
That Got Away, for example, a reader who wants a terse, linear story can
go fishing, catch a little fish, and retire with the maximum number of
points. Readers who want a more dramatic ending can perservere until they
find The One. And readers who like wandering storylines filled with
little details can show every object they find to the man behind the
counter.
Of course, there are limits to the degree to which an IF reader can
personalize the story--you can't go hunting for sea shells in The One, or
go snorkling, or do any one of a million other things you could do at a
lake in real lifeQ and that's as it should be. The IF author creates the
world and sets some limits on the storyline; the IF readers determines
where they'd like to go within those limits. (There are computer
programs that allow readers to personalize a story to their hearts' contents.
These programs are called "word processors," and are considered by many to be
the ultimate in Interactive Fiction. Look for them in your local computer
shop.)
2) Intimacy. When you are sitting in a room with a performing artist,
there is a bond between you and the performer that a non-live performance
cannot capture, and can replicate only rarely. Part of it has to do with
the interaction between performer and audience; the artist picks up on
the cues of the audience, and modifies his performance accordingly. In
turn, the audience reacts favorably or disfavorably. IF allows the
fiction writer to mimic this process. When I try to do something out of
the ordinary in an IF game, and get a clever response, I feel for a
moment as though the author has created something just for me. Rationally
speaking, I know that any other player would get the same response to the
same action; but the illusion of intimacy has nonetheless been created.
3) Internalization. You complained that having to stop the story and wait
for response breaks up the flow of the story. You're right, and this is
certainly a flaw of IF. But every medium has its flaws that break up the
flow; actors can forget their lines, movies can get scratched, and most
novels aren't read through in one sitting. Think for a moment about what
happens, though, when an IF story prompts you for a response. In that
moment, you must imagine yourself as the story's protagonist, and you
must imagine what you would do in that situation. You must place yourself
in the story, and you must place the story within you.
I think that, to some degree, the media that touch us most effectively
our the ones that make the most demands on our imagination. That's why,
for me, a book is far more likely to pull me in than a movie. IF makes
one more demand on the reader than normal F; it makes her take part in
the story, and it therefore draws her more into the world of the story.
For a concrete demonstration of this, print out a transcript of a
complete Planetfall game, print it out, and have a friend who didn't play
the game read the transcript. (Warning: Planetfall spoilers coming up.)
I think you'll find that they react to the death of Floyd with far less
emotion than those of us who actually played through the game. If you
were to transpose all the text you see about Floyd to a novel, you'd
find him a flat and unsatisfying character. But when you actually play
the game, you are forced to think of him as an actual being in order to
solve certain puzzles. It's the interaction that makes him come alive.
I want to stress that I don't think that interactive fiction is superior
to traditional fiction. I've dabbled in a number of different media, and
fiction is still my greatest love. But I don't think that IF is
inferior to fiction, either. IF and F are simply two different art forms.