The interactive novel is a form of web fiction and interactive fiction. While authors of traditional paper-and-ink novels have sometimes tried to give readers the random directionality offered by true hypertexting, this approach was not completely feasible until the development of HTML. Paper novels (indeed, some digital novels) are linear, that is, read from page to page in a straight line. Heather McElhatton's novel "Million Little Mistakes" published by Harpercollins in 2010 is a hard copy book with over a hundred endings and can be considered an interactive novel in the classic choose your own adventure style.[1]
Online interactive novels, however, offer readers another unique way to read fiction by choosing a page, a character, or a direction. By following hyperlinked phrases within the novel, readers can find new ways to understand characters. There is no wrong way to read a hypertext interactive novel. Links embedded within the pages are meant to be taken at a reader's discretion – to allow the reader a choice in the novel's world.
A typical example of this genre is The Interactive Novel: Pick a character, pick a direction, found on David Benson's "No Dead Trees" website.[2] This fiction allows readers, who can also become writers, to explore the novel from a list of characters given at the site. The novel is intended to be read randomly, as the reader chooses to follow various directions.
The genre has prompted some less than respectful responses, including a comment by John Updike, who participated in an early effort at online fiction, that "books haven't really been totally ousted yet."[3] Other critics, while conceding the hyped and trendy nature of the genre, have found real value in the immersive if sometimes disorienting nature of interactive fiction.[4]
There are many interactive novels on the Web. Some of the older efforts have fallen into disuse, but the ease of creating such fiction, with the lack of the barriers to entry typical of traditional paper-and-ink publishing, helps to keep the genre alive with new works.[5]
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"Wovel" is Underland Press's term for an online interactive "web novel."[6] It is almost in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure gamebook in which the reader chooses which way the action will continue. It is written by the author as people vote which way the action will continue.[7] Because the author has no way of knowing how everyone will vote, they have to wait until voting is finished to continue writing the story. Despite its interactivity, because a Wovel is released piece-by-piece, it is a form of webserial. Also, each "episode" ends with a cliffhanger, but the choice and fate of the plot is up to the reader's vote, and not predetermined by the author.[8] The first wovel was from Victoria Blake's Underland Press and features Kealan Patrick Burke's The Living (which is still ongoing). It started June 1, 2008 and immediately had over 1,000 readers and 700 votes in its first few days of being published online. It currently releases a new section of the story every Monday, and voting on it continues through Thursday. Burke writes the new section of story, and then the new post goes up on the following Monday.[9]