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This element of improvisation, ofevolution ofa narrative based on feedback, the infinite
and unpredictable possibilities of story development and personal influence on it in a
kind of conversation are the appeal of this kind of oral story telling. An electronic text
can give some of this unpredictability back. While a print text is physically present and
its developments towards an inevitable end are always already written'', an electronic text
(with only the current position in the text present and the 'end' still in the computer
memory to be retrieved on the fly) can give, in a well-written and structured hypertext,
the impression ofinfluence on its development.
The Magic Spell
Despite the attraction of the conversation-like approach to developing a personalised
story, one can also identify its disadvantages. In the same article in which Charles Platt
gives the Thomas-the-Rabbit example, he counterargues that frequent interaction can
also break the magic spell of storytelling, can be an interruption to the delicate
construction ofa well-told story instead ofa welcomed and fruitful intervention:
Consider the origins of storytelling. Beside a crackling fire, Og the Barbarian
mesmerizes his people with a gripping narrative. He begins: "Once there was a
warrior who lived far, farawayin a tribe that cast him out into the wilderness." A little
kid pipes up: "How far away did they live? Was it the other side of the mountain?"
The child's mothers shushes him. "Be quiet! Og's telling a story! Don't spoil it!" And
this is the point: as soon as you let the audience interrupt, it can spoil that strange
state ofbelief- the magical spell ofimmersion - which a great storyteller creates."
Here it is the unknown development, the carefully controlled pace and the surprise
twists and turns ofthe narrative - the "magical spell of immersion" - that are threatened
by too much audience participation, which not only interrupts, but makes the audience
aware of the fictional, made-up character of the story. There seems to exist a delicate
balance, if not contradiction, in storytelling between immersion and interaction, and it
has been argued from both readers' and authors' side that the traditional roles should not
be shifted too much towards intervention.
15 a notion played with for example by Jane Austen, who comments on the inevitable arrival of the
end that announces itself by the steadily diminishing number of pages left to read in Nortbanger Abbey
("The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the portion of Henry and Catherine [...)
as to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale
compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity") (New
York: Prestige Book, 1968), p 347.
18 Charles Platt, "Interactive Entertainment: Who writes it? Who Reads it? Who Need it?", Wired,
vol.j, nO·9 (September 1995), 145-149,195-197 (P.147).
Chapter 3 -page 96