Just as the explosive growth of digital media has led to ever-expanding narrative possibilities and practices, so these new electronic modes of storytelling have, in their own turn, demanded a rapid and radical rethinking of narrative theory. This timely volume takes up the challenge, deeply and broadly considering the relationship between digital technology and narrative theory in the face of the changing landscape of computer-mediated communication.
New Narratives reflects the diversity of its subject by bringing together some of the foremost practitioners and theorists of digital narratives. It extends the range of digital subgenres examined by narrative theorists to include forms that have become increasingly prominent, new examples of experimental hypertext, and contemporary video games. The collection also explicitly draws connections between the development of narrative theory, technological innovation, and the use of narratives in particular social and cultural contexts.
Finally, New Narratives focuses on how the tools provided by new technologies may be harnessed to provide new ways of both producing and theorizing narrative. Truly interdisciplinary, the book offers broad coverage of contemporary narrative theory, including frameworks that draw from classical and postclassical narratology, linguistics, and media studies.
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Introduction
Ruth Page and Bronwen Thomas
Part 1. New Foundations
1. From Synesthesia to Multimedia: How to Talk about New Media Narrative
Daniel Punday
2. The Interactive Onion: Layers of User Participation in Digital Narrative Texts
Marie-Laure Ryan
3. Ontological Boundaries and Methodological Leaps: The Importance of Possible Worlds Theory for Hypertext Fiction (and Beyond)
Alice Bell
4. Seeing through the Blue Nowhere: On Narrative Transparency and New Media
Michael Joyce
Part 2. New Architectures
5. Curveship: An Interactive Fiction System for Narrative Variation
Nick Montfort
6. Digitized Corpora as Theory-Building Resource: New Methods for Narrative Inquiry
Andrew Salway and David Herman
7. From (W)reader to Breather: Cybertextual De-intentionalization and Kate Pullinger's Breathing Wall
Astrid Ensslin
8. Songlines in the Streets: Story Mapping with Itinerant Hypernarrative
Brian Greenspan
9. Narrative Supplements: DVD and the Idea of the "Text"
Paul Cobley and Nick Haeffner
Part 3. New Practices
10. All Together Now: Hypertext, Collective Narratives, and Online Collective Knowledge Communities
Scott Rettberg
11. "Update Soon!" Harry Potter Fanfiction and Narrative as a Participatory Process
Bronwen Thomas
12. Blogging on the Body: Gender and Narrative
Ruth Page
13. Using the Force: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game, Intertextuality, Narrative, and Play
James Newman and Iain Simons
14. Digital Narratives, Cultural Inclusion, and Educational Possibility: Going New Places with Old Stories in Elementary School
Heather Lotherington
Glossary
Contributors
