User:Thijshijsijsjss/Human Parser/About Interactive Fiction

This text is about giving a little insight into interactive fiction, and connecting that to dissociativity. I dont know yet how I feel about the headers. I wrote this without them, and feel like they interupt the flow a little and are a little pretentious. But without seperating it from the rest, I feel the final part isn't emphasized enough. And that conclusion is what justifies the rest of the text for me, so this is important.
About Interactive Fiction, 1: The Dissolution of 'I'In the 1967 text Cybernetics and Ghosts, writer and Oulipo member Italo Calvino proposes and investigates the notion of 'a literary automaton': a machine not only capable of assembly-line literary production, but of a deep exploration of psychological life (Calvino, 1980). In doing so, Calvino reflects on his experiences producing text. He notes that in the process of writing, the 'I' splits into different figures: 
Into an 'I' who is writing and an 'I' who is written, into an empirical 'I' who looks over the shoulder of the 'I' who is writing and into a mythical 'I' who serves as a model for the 'I' who is written. The 'I' of the authos is dissolved in the writing, the so-called personality of the writer exists within the very act of writing.
(note: I could expand a lot on this part ^)
The Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle) were prolific in writing in non-traditional formats. At the same time, they occupied themselves with the very tradition of writing, 'claiming not to innovate at any price' (Lescure, 2003). They intended to find structures within the constraints and procedures of writing. Famed examples include George Perec's A Void, a book without the letter e, and Raymond Queneau's A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, a combinatorial exercise presenting 10 sonnets of which the lines at the same positions are all interchangeable with each other. By this, Queneau invites the reader to become part of the process of literary creation. He also wrote Yours for the Telling, a branching short story with explicit choices for the reader to make. Again, an attempt to include the otherwise distant reader by means of interactive co-narration.
About Interactive Fiction, 1: The Dissolution of 'You'Interactive fiction is a story in which you are the main character. Your own thinking and imagination determine the actions of that character and guide the story from start to finish. (Blank, Lebling, 2001)
It has been common for interactive fiction to address the reader with 'you'. Famous, formative examples of interactive fiction include text-adventures like ZORK (the manual of which being the origin of the above quote) and the Choose Your Own Adventure book series[1]. 
There's a curious difference in the way the reader is addressed in ZORK and the CYOA books compared to Yours for the Telling: whereas most CYOA decisions are diegetic[2], and the choice is concerning the 'you' that appears as a character in the text, in Yours for the Telling, the decisions are non-diegetic, and concern 'you', the reader.
This highlights a curious effect interactive fiction has on the idea of a reader[3]. Similar to how Calvino describes the splitting of the 'I' in writing, in interactive fiction the 'you' is dissolved. There's a 'puppet-you' who is addressed in the story, controlled and existing in the mind of the 'reader-you', but whose existences don't fully coincide. There's a 'projected-you', envisioned by the creator, with whom they play an unwritten meta-game exploring the friction of this partial coincidence, and a 'meta-you' trying to figure out what the creator's projections are.
This is a natural result, maybe, of the process of shared creation: the 'I' and 'you' bleed into each other. This is a striking observation. A primary purpose of turning fiction interactive and of addressing the reader by 'you', is to improve immersion: [explanation and reference]. In the hopes of increasing reader presence, there's a parallel fade-out of reader identity.
About Interactive Fiction, 3: The Dissolution of Me(This was all build up. Now for the dramatic conclusion and the thematic justification for all this IF-talk)
This is a striking observation indeed. The 'you' dissolving is the exact experience I have experiencing dissociation. 'You' bleeding into 'I'. Hoping to find my presence amidst my ever-fading sense of identity. The user Thijs directs the agent Thijs to strike up a conversation that the writer Thijs has written and the reader Thijs must listen to, with a meta-Thijs observing in an attempt to figure out who this figure 'Thijs' might be. A co-narration of Thijses all fighting for coexistence, yet never fully coinciding.
As interactive fiction, the text-adventure is not just a narrative. It is a model for the inability to grasp one's identity in full. An interactive model. And so, with trust, it is also a playground to explore the friction of one's identity. It is the adventure of existence in text. It is were 'I' can become 'you' for a while to see if that feels like 'me'.
The tone of this section is a little different from the others. Okay? Or better to remain more distant? The pacing here is quite fast. Should I elaborate more?
Notes↑ Notably, Queneau's Yours for the Telling was first published in 1973, preceding the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books made by Edward Packard that started serial publishing in 1976 and book publishing in 1979. (Kraft, 1981, Scafferri, 1986)
↑ Diegetic meaning 'occuring within the narrative'. A diegetic choice is one acknowledged by and part of the narrative, whereas a non-diegetic choice occurs on a different level, separating the story as told and as read.
↑ to add: can we even speak of 'a reader' at this point. the reader / user / player / witness / agent are all ways of addressing this figure in Aarseth's writings.
ReferencesCalvino, I. (1980) 'Cybernetics and Ghosts', in: Calvino, I. The Uses of Literature. USA, pp. 3-27
Lescure, J. (2003) 'A Brief History of the Oulipo', in Wardin-Fruin, N. and Montfort, N. (eds.) The New Media Reader. Cambridge, MA, USA and London, England: The MIT Press, pp. 172-176
Blank, M., Lebling, D. (2001) Instruction Manual for Zork I: The Great Underground Empire. USA: Activision Inc.
Scott Kraft (October 10, 1981). "He Chose His Own Adventure". The Day. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
Sandi Scaffetti (March 30, 1986). "Interactive fiction". The Beaver County Times. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
[1] Notably, Queneau's Yours for the Telling was first published in 1973, preceding the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books made by Edward Packard that started serial publishing in 1976 and book publishing in 1979. (Kraft, 1981, Scafferri, 1986)
[2] Diegetic meaning 'occuring within the narrative'. A diegetic choice is one acknowledged by and part of the narrative, whereas a non-diegetic choice occurs on a different level, separating the story as told and as read.
[3] to add: can we even speak of 'a reader' at this point. the reader / user / player / witness / agent are all ways of addressing this figure in Aarseth's writings.
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