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Writing for Interactive Media: The Complete Guide
Writing for Interactive Media is a comprehensive how-to guide that demystifies the complex process of interactive writing. Authors Samsel and Wimberley examine the constantly-evolving arena of interactive storytelling, exploring the entire gamut of multimedia activity from Internet soap operas to educational kiosks to ongoing experiments which take gaming narratives from the living room to players across the globe. The book teaches everything writers need to know about the emerging craft of interactive writing from character and story issues to compensation. The authors reveal how to create design proposals, interactive screenplays, and flow modules that will meet the rigid standards of industry professionals. Full of innovative techniques tailored for the interactive environment, this is an indispensable tool for writers seeking to expand their markets and venture into the realm of interactive media.
305 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1998
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March 8, 2019
Aimed primarily at non-technical non-writers who want to create CD-ROM based FMV games (with lip service to other kinds of interactive media), this book was probably not particularly useful even in 1998. Despite citing hypertext & cybertext theory, the authors seem ignorant of common practices in interactive fiction and in VNs, and declare insoluble the problems that these forms had definitively solved by the early 90s.
A large chunk of the book (especially concentrated in part II, which is essentially a mediocre screenwriting manual) is dedicated to the running theme that meaningful interactivity is impossible to square with a compelling narrative (with attempts to back this up by appeals to the supposed universality of three act structures, an argument built on dubious readings of structuralist semiotics). If you would like to write the kind of interactive narrative this book holds up as the only valid form, you're better off reading Save The Cat.
The authors seem unable to go more than twenty pages without taking unnecessary and misinformed potshots at postmodernism.
Stories used as examples have their plots misrepresented, leading to distracting factual errors, including real howlers like "Romeo was not in love with anyone at the beginning of the play". Less extreme but still puzzling, the authors use the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill as an example but do not realize (as most children do) that the 'crown' Jack breaks is the crown of his head -- i.e., that he broke his skull open -- not a piece of gilded headgear. These errors are accompanied by occasional but distracting typos that somehow made their way through editing.
The book is not wholly without merit. The taxonomy of interactive story structures is incomplete but probably more complete than those available from other general audience literature at the time (though now it's better to just read Emily Short's blog post on the subject), and some of the interviews are interesting (even when the authors, when summarizing them, misrepresent the positions being stated). The survey of existing projects is of possible historical interest, being a record of late 90s Anglophone new media. The chapter on hypertext narrative is interesting, and those who like it should read Narrative Space.
A large chunk of the book (especially concentrated in part II, which is essentially a mediocre screenwriting manual) is dedicated to the running theme that meaningful interactivity is impossible to square with a compelling narrative (with attempts to back this up by appeals to the supposed universality of three act structures, an argument built on dubious readings of structuralist semiotics). If you would like to write the kind of interactive narrative this book holds up as the only valid form, you're better off reading Save The Cat.
The authors seem unable to go more than twenty pages without taking unnecessary and misinformed potshots at postmodernism.
Stories used as examples have their plots misrepresented, leading to distracting factual errors, including real howlers like "Romeo was not in love with anyone at the beginning of the play". Less extreme but still puzzling, the authors use the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill as an example but do not realize (as most children do) that the 'crown' Jack breaks is the crown of his head -- i.e., that he broke his skull open -- not a piece of gilded headgear. These errors are accompanied by occasional but distracting typos that somehow made their way through editing.
The book is not wholly without merit. The taxonomy of interactive story structures is incomplete but probably more complete than those available from other general audience literature at the time (though now it's better to just read Emily Short's blog post on the subject), and some of the interviews are interesting (even when the authors, when summarizing them, misrepresent the positions being stated). The survey of existing projects is of possible historical interest, being a record of late 90s Anglophone new media. The chapter on hypertext narrative is interesting, and those who like it should read Narrative Space.
Displaying 1 of 1 review