First Draft of the
Revolution
62 | Discoverable narrative in digital works.
63 |Liza Daly (Thanks!)
64 |

2011
70 |1985
71 |When I was 12,
I thought I was living in
the future of books.
One or more “interactive fiction” games dominated the software sales charts for almost a decade.
77 |
82 | 88 | “You’re five hundred miles above a sea of ice, hurtling in 89 | profound silence over the Arctic atmosphere. Layers of crimson 90 | and violet describe the curve of the horizon, blending 91 | imperceptibly into a black sky crowded with stars. 92 |
93 |94 | You watch helplessly as the white door dwindles to a 95 | distant speck, vanishing at last between the horns of the 96 | rising moon.” 97 |
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112 | 116 |126 |The interactive fiction game “Adventure” can be experienced in 117 | 187 billion trillion unique ways.
118 | 119 | Mary Ann Buckles, Interactive 121 | Fiction as Literature 122 | 1987 123 | 124 | 125 |
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The first graphical
web browser is introduced
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139 | 140 | Myst: 141 | 142 |
143 |Click Here to Join
My Books in Browsers Web Ring!
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157 | 162 |167 | The End of Books, Robert Coover, New York Times (1992) 168 |“Eloquence is being redefined. “Text” has lost its 163 | canonical certainty. How does one judge, analyze, write 164 | about a work that never reads the same way twice?” 165 |
166 |
“Hypertext fiction”
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177 | -
182 |
- Story-driven 183 |
- User-controlled 184 |
- Fun 185 |
Games
187 |Art
191 |-
192 |
- Mood-driven 193 |
- Author-controlled 194 |
- “Important” 195 |
Emily Short
204 |Freelance consultant in
interactive narrative.
First Draft of the Revolution
210 |Advance
216 |Expand
220 |225 | “Presenting ‘First Draft’ through interactive letter-writing allows me 226 | to focus on the interpersonal dynamics at a very granular level. I’m 227 | interested in problems of how people communicate – how they 228 | manipulate one another, how they assert control or social dominance, 229 | how they allow themselves to be vulnerable – and I want to show those 230 | interactions rather than telling them.” 231 |
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235 | 239 |250 |240 | What has poetry to do with computer software? They share a great human 241 | myth or trope, an image that could be called the secret passage: the 242 | discovery of large, manifold channels through a small, 243 | ordinary-looking or all but invisible aperture. 244 |
245 | The 247 | Muse in the Machine, Robert Pinsky, New York Times (1995) 248 | 249 |