Interaction in Fiction

In order to identify the key issues of interactivity as they relate to online comics in particular, I will firstly examine the subject of interactive fiction in general. The definition of interaction is "reciprocal action or influence" ⁵  . In computing terms, the issue of interaction between human and computer has always been a thorny one. This is hardly surprising, as establishing a reciprocal relationship with a machine is not an easy thing to do. Somewhere along the difficult history of human-computer interaction, the idea of interactivity seems to have been wrongly distilled down to the issue of control.

In the case of an informational work, the user usually has a fairly well defined idea of what it is they wish to get out of their interaction with the work. As a result, they are not usually too concerned with how they achieve their goal. In the case of a reader approaching a comic, the opposite is true: the important question is not 'did you find out what you wanted?' but 'what did you learn from the experience?' This is to say that the value of fiction is not measured in definable outcomes, but on the quality of experience that it gives.

In the case of the information website, the user has a defined goal, but not a defined path. In the case of a comic, the objectives are less clear, but the way forward is clearly laid out before the reader. A common pitfall of interactive fiction is that it provides neither an obvious pathway nor clearly defined objectives. Without either of these, the reader finds it difficult to proceed. This is a common pitfall of post-modernism, which often mistakes guiding lights for prison camp searchlights. Clearly some form of framework is needed, around which the receiver can build their experience.

I consider that the key issue of interaction in fiction is not that of control, but of dialogue. Dialogue between the work and the audience is absolutely vital to the functioning of any work as an artwork (indeed, I would argue that this is as good a basis as any on which to define what is art; however that can of worms can be left alone here). Part of the joy in an artwork is personal interpretation and debating its meaning with others.

The receiver of any medium must interpret and infer because a medium is just that, a middleman between originator and receiver. In the case of an element whose meaning is not absolutely explicit to the receiver, the receiver must decide what to do. The basic choices are: enquire, interpret or ignore. In the case of most media (face-to-face story-telling being one notable exception) the option of enquiry is non-existent. It is generally supposed that the power of digital delivery should be able to enhance the experience of the receiver of a work by making enquiry a more realistic option. It is this desire to make available to the receiver a viable line of enquiry that evokes such excitement about interactive fiction.

A common instinct when trying to introduce interactivity into a narrative is to think of it as a game. It is in this way that the 'rules and objectives' framework of a game is introduced. This is an understandable approach, but, to my mind, damaging to the cause of creating interactive fiction. The way in which games and fiction work are entirely different, and to try and marry the two is liable to end in disaster.

The dynamic of a game is such that participants are given a goal that they have to achieve within a framework of rules and conventions. The dynamic of a story is that of an individual or group to present a narrative to an audience, usually through a medium such as the theatre, the written word, etc. The aims of either activity are variable, however both broadly aim to entertain and educate. In the context of a game, it is usually expected that participants are familiar with the rules and objectives of a game before taking part. New players then learn how best to proceed within the conventions of the game in question. In the context of a narrative, prior knowledge of conventions is less important, as the structure is such that little initiative is required on the part of the reader; their path is marked out before them.

The role of the creator of a narrative is to lay a path for the reader to follow. The stringency with which this path is defined may be relaxed, but such direction must exist, else the fabric of the narrative disappears. Whatever erosion of control and the reception process take place, there can never be a total escape from the essential nature of author as producer and reader as receiver. The two states are the fundamental building blocks upon which the expression through media is based.

To supply your audience with the literary equivalent of a blank canvas, brushes and ready-mixed palette may be very post-modern, but it is also most definitely a failure on the part of the originator to produce an adequate source of stimulus. In other words, if too much of the creative process is handed over to the audience, then there is nothing to react to, and interaction is not increased but destroyed.

Pearce addresses this issue in terms of character. She describes character as "the soul of drama"  ⁶ . She contends that the bulk of a creator's energies when generating a story are devoted to the generation of characters. She points out that much development is required to define a character to the point where the author can know what the character's reaction to any given situation would be, and it is these decisions that define a character. Pearce sees this as a paradox and asks:

If a character is defined by the decisions he or she makes, what happens when that character is acted upon by a player?  ⁷ 

This illustrates a key difference between a game and a story, which is that a game relates only to the character of its players, whereas a story seeks to generate and explore characters other than those of the creator and reader. In order to do this, the author of a work needs to retain control over causality within a narrative.

The essential problem is that the narrative is often viewed as dictatorial, something from which the reader needs to be freed. The solution is to loosen narrative constraints, the idea being that this enables the reader to engage in the process of creating a story. It is sometimes supposed that the notion of navigable narratives erodes the possibility of a shared experience between readers - if every reader decides their own path through a story to create their own meta-story (distinct sets of narrative elements, determined by the route the reader navigates through the narrative), then the shared experience is lost. However, interactive narratives do not erode the possibility of a shared experience, but merely expose the essentially separate but related nature of different readers' experience of any story.

In the process of reading any narrative, the reader seeks to complete their understanding of the story, and in doing so they create their own meta-story. It should be pointed out that 'meta-story' in this sense pertains to the reader's unique conception of the same story that they have generated in their own mind, as distinct from the 'meta-story' referred to above, where the actual structure and content differs between readers.

It is precisely this difference in interpretation between readers that allows a shared experience. If the meaning of an artefact is transparent, then there are no grounds for a dialogue between readers. People do not hotly debate their interpretations of a fire exit sign. The sign is designed to be explicit. Readers of the sign may be fairly confident of having a shared understanding of the sign's meaning, but this scarcely amounts to much of an experience. It is the journey of discovery to arrive at one's own understanding of a text, and sharing your journey with others who have navigated their own route through the same text, which is the appeal of fiction.

I would suggest that the idea of maximising the sense of a personalised journey through a text is best served not by offering readers different paths to walk, but by allowing them more freedom with regard to the attention they pay to the scenery along the way. A common compliment paid to an artwork is that it 'operates on many levels' or that it has 'hidden depths'. Such works are multi-layered, and each reader of the work chooses the level at which they wish to engage with the work. It is this quality that I believe can be expanded upon by interactive fiction in general and online comics in particular.

The capacity to represent enormous quantities of information in digital form translates into an artist's potential to offer a wealth of detail to represent the world with both scope and particularity. ⁸ 

In order to foster greater interactivity in fiction, the reader needs greater input from the author, not less. It then becomes the function if the reader to take as much detail as they desire at any given point in the narrative, according to their level of interest. Therefore interactivity is introduced in terms of user control over the granularity of the work.

It is within precisely this model of interactivity that online comics could excel. Imagine a comic strip whose illustrations contain narrative information, and also elements that pertain to more than just the story line. This comic can then be read on several levels, depending on the reader's level of interest and inquisition. Imagine further that the reader in some way can interrogate the illustrations of the strip. Certain elements of the illustrations or the words could be selected by the reader (by clicking on them, for instance) for further enquiry. This would allow the reader to control the depth in which they received a narrative, and allow them to 'ask' questions where they felt necessary. This would also allow the creator greater freedom of narrative. It would no longer be necessary to contrive an explanation of a character's background when introducing them. Such information could be made available to the curious reader, without it having to be awkwardly shoehorned into the dialogue. I would suggest that it is in this manner, rather than the model of a narrative/game hybrid, that can best heighten the sense of dialogue between reader and work through interactivity.