project: fudgie bears

FUDGIE BEARS

The Project

To commission, collect, and edit stories built around an experimental literary conceit, and then to publish those stories in a controlled medium that changes the reader's experience and reinforces the idea around which the stories were written.

What?

I want to get a bunch of talented writers to contribute works of short fiction that all spin around a core concept, and then publish their stories in an app that optimizes the reading experience specifically for that concept.

So what's the concept?

barely interactive fiction

In barely interactive fiction, writers have the opportunity to make readers think differently about how a story unfolds.

In traditional literature, readers commit to moving forward simply by turning a page.

Their commitment is tacit, unconscious.

In barely interactive fiction, the core decision readers are asked to make — whether or not to opt into a text, whether or not to keep going — is made explicit.

In today's reading environments, we as readers are regularly asked to act.

We accept conditions.

Acknowledge terms.

Dismiss windows.

Kill pages.

Reject friends.

Whatever technology we're interacting with doesn't do those things for us.

We have to do them.

So let's integrate that small moment of reader participation into more – and more kinds of –

reading experiences. And let's do so intentionally.

To visualize the idea behind barely interactive fiction, think about modern media, and about the interfaces we encounter daily.

Think about the kindsof ideas so often presented to us.

And about the buttons we're asked to click.

Think about a person's everyday participation in the reading experience.

And about how the nature of that participation has changed over the years.

What is lost in the everyday transactions between people and machines?

And what happens when, in an interactive world, your choices feel more narrow?

Sometimes, the only options we feel we have as we read our way through the world are to...

give up or keep going.

So let's embrace that.

And let's accentuate those brief and tiny instances of active reader participation.

Let's build stories around small and singular moments of reader participation in interactive media.

And let's do so not as part of a game.

Let's do so through a kind of literature.

The centers of these stories are about moments of faith...

And romance.

Moments of striving...

And failing.

They're about nostalgia...

Or memory.

Permanence...

Authority...

...And surrender.

They're about who we are...

And who we want to be.

What are these stories about?

Sometimes, they are about endings.

And sometimes they're about a beginning.

I think there's potential to make interesting art, and to think differently about reading and writing, by building stories around people's interactions with the often out-of-sync interfaces of the modern world.

In barely interactive fiction, the compact between reader and writer fits in the literary tradition, but the decision a reader makes to opt into a text is not merely explicit, it's core to the experience.

It's not a game.

It's not choose-your-own adventure.

There's still only one path.

BUT

Readers must actively make a single decision:

To go on or not to.

And that's the fun part.

The medium and the structure of these stories force readers to click or tap; they're asked to participate, but also to commit and recommit to the text.

Barely Interactive Fiction

That's how I see it, at least.

And I think it's exciting?

BUT

I'm not really a writer.

I have just one perspective.

And I think the project requires a bunch of them.

SO

Terms and Conditions

Writers pick a single-choice, one-click question, and write their story around it. (Or write a story around a series of these reader actions.)

Authors conceive of and write whatever interface windows and buttons they need for their story. They can use as many windows as they want. (Well, not zero.)

It's short fiction; word count is open-ended.

Terms and Continued

I'll commission and edit the stories.

And find someone to design and build an app.

And get it released.

If any money comes of it, all contributors will split it, somehow.

That's the idea.

What do you think?

Josh Kimballjosh.kimball@gmail.com

Write to me with questions, criticism, disdain, disinterest, stories, design ideas, development expertise, or anything else:

josh.kimball@gmail.comscreenshotsofdespair.tumblr.com