Regarding the latter, the relationship between literature and new media could be observed specially since the late 80s, when hypertext fiction appeared thanks to the invention of software such as links and the development of the Internet. Afternoon, a story (1987), written by Mychael Joyce, and Victory Garden, de Stuart Moulthrop, are some of the most important books published by Eastgate Systems, a pioneer company in hypertext narrative. There have been authors that created this kind of literature before, such as Julio Cortázar (Rayuela is the best example of his work), Jorge Luis Borges (with Fictions) and other writers, but the characteristics of the knowledge space that Lévy describes in his work (the speed, the mass and the tools that makes us able to do connections in a bigger scale) have done that electronic literature seems something new. “We are leaving in exponential times”…
With this kind of books, story development is up to the reader: he never knows if he has read all the pages or if he has reached the closure. Because probably you will feel that you need it (as I felt once), I will tell you that you can follow the links to know something else of these books/games on Wikipedia and how they work, but let me give you an advice: relax; take it easy, getting lost is part of the magic of these readings.
If transmedia texts are an example of how fan fiction can be an unauthorized expansion of the plots of these stories, in electronic literature the possibilities are not just up to the more loyal followers, but to everybody that take a look for the first time to these books. They have also different platforms to get the reader (some of them have their own online version, a CD-ROM or even the printed book). However, if there is one point where they may diverge, this is about the coordination and the co-creation.
While transmedia storytellings are textual activators that makes the users participate in the fictional words as a group, all together, gathering the dispersed information that the author gives them, electronic literature doesn´t seek the collectivity. The hunting is an individualistic one. Here is where hypernarrative differs from the collective intelligence. It is more related with the art postmodernist theories that relativize the power of the individual reader over the text. Maybe it is because this literature is still presented, as I said before, in closed packages, not always in a website. A user can have fun with these readings but we have to realize that is completely different from projects of peer- production. The interaction is between you and the different parts of the text that the author has dispersed for you. We cannot say that the reader of Afternoon, a story, is creating something itself. Ok. His taking part in a more participative way than with an ordinary narrative, but his work is just ordering pieces that, sooner or later, like a Rubik cube, will make sense.
Leaving aside the issue of the historical relation between literature and new media, it is even more important to see how the print media manage with the new digital one, whatever it would be (hypertext narrative, newspapers and so on). The first assumption to take in account is that Internet lets writers to show easily their work. Because who cares about the produsers work if its distribution doesn´t get the crowd? The most famous example is the self-publish website Lulu.com, where writers can upload their creations and receive the 80 % of the benefits thanks to the absence of intermediaries. Here I let a video with the instructions of how to exploit the author that you have inside.
Bob Young, the creator of Lulu.com, doesn´t care about the talent of the users. According to the line of the long tale theory, he prefers one thousand authors who sell one hundred copies each year as his model of business. Like in the transmedia storytellings, expanding the potential market for the property by creating different points of entry for different audience segments is the key of the success. Contrary to what Walter Benjamin, quantity has not been transmuted into quality. The rest of the users are there to create metadata about all the stuff published in Lulu and to discern between that what is worth and that what´s not.
As we can see, the proliferation of new technologies has given rise to the appearance of new genres of literature and new publishing companies. We cannot doubt about the effects of this love story in journalism field, but what happen with the ending? It would be a happy one? In the past, sometimes newspapers talk about the fashionable writers in their pages. Now, this function of the newspapers is over. Actually, the future of books and printed newspapers maybe is not clear yet, but what it is sure is that the patronage is died and writers don´t need good references anymore, at least, to publish. There is nothing to say about the readers. They don´t want to pay for a something that maybe they will dislike. In my opinion, the only exit is publishing literature, in books or journals, in a new digital way. It is time for the produsage of information, open codes and projects like Born Magazine, pairing poets with artists who make a digital presentation for each poem published in the journal, or Dreaming Methods, a fusion of writing and new media exploring imaginary memories.
Amalia Paloma González Jiménez
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