EduTechie.com

1 | The Wife

April 4th, 2008 at 9:27 am

What is this world coming to?

To answer the obvious questions, this is NOT progress. Unless one wants to count enabling technology to absorb human existence as progress. And unfortunately, I think that there are no limits to the other mediums that people will ATTEMPT to use to “tell stories.”

The point that is being entirely overlooked is that there is a fundamental difference between “telling stories” and writing great literature.

I tell stories on my blog because I know that I lack the genius required to write great literature. The point of reading literature is not to “just read a quick story” or “a quick and easy read” that’s laziness, my friends. The point of reading Literature is to “plumb the depth and breadth of human experience” (Jane Austen, Mansfield Park).

These mediums are for people who lack the attention span to READ a real BOOK. And since we live in a television and technology saturated society they are not likely to go away. The author of The 21 Steps said it himself, “It was limiting only in the sense that I couldn’t explore character in any great depth or get into the more psychological or emotional sides of the story. Plot was everything.” That’s the kind of stories that this medium will give you. Nothing more and nothing less.

2 | Adrian Hon

April 4th, 2008 at 5:31 pm

I’m the lead designer of We Tell Stories.

Go into a bookstore, put on a blindfold, and pick out ten random books. How many are literature? How many plumb the depth and breadth of human experience? 7? 5? 2? Or none? If we want to be elitist, let’s start with books first.

‘We Tell Stories’ isn’t literature (yet - wait until Week 6). But it *is* massively popular. More people have read Charles Cumming’s 21 Steps than have read all of his books put together. In fact, The 21 Steps has been read by more people than most books ever sell in their lifetimes. I don’t think I or Charles would claim it was literature - but I would say it was entertaining and interesting, and if people agree, then it’s done its job.

We never claimed that this was the future of fiction. I have several hundred books in my flat, and I don’t intend to stop buying books. I don’t want to see digital fiction supplant books. But I think it is a sign of deep insecurity and worry that people feel the need to attack experiments like We Tell Stories - and I’m not surprised, either, because the proportion of people reading books is going continuously down. This is a depressing fact to me, but at the end of the day, I would rather have someone read a story on the web than no story at all.

These are early days yet. I’m very pleased with the way the stories have turned out so far, but I think even the authors would agree that they are only just learning how to use this new medium, and the stories will only get better. We Tell Stories still has some good stories to go yet.