Week 7: Network Writing

Chapter 6 of Electronic Literature discusses network writing, which is “...electronic literature created for and published on the Internet.” (Rettberg 152.) It encompasses many different forms of writing, such as narratives written over text, email, social media, blog posts or traditional mail.  The combination of different sites and works to create bigger picture stories, performances, and even the inclusion of interactors to help shape narratives also fall into the category of network writing. The form I found most interesting was the email novels, where readers get daily emails continuing a story in real time. I found it fascinating that community members can help create narratives by physically participating in performances such as writing words, placing items in certain places, answering questions, etc. This is the first form of literature I’ve come across where the reader can be physically involved in the creation of the story. This chapter does seem a little bit more relatable to our generation, as it has a lot to do with online communication and social media. Things such as blogs, twitter stories, and Wattpad novels might be more relevant to young adults, and can be more accessible and interesting than some other forms of electronic literature that we’ve discussed. 

I chose to look at Implementation by Scott Rettberg and Nick Monfort, as its interactive aspect piqued my interest. The novel was written by Rettberg and Monfort and then broken up into sections, put on stickers, and sent out all over the world for people to stick in public places. Pictures of the stickers were then sent in and organized electronically, allowing for them to be viewed online. The paragraphs themselves are kind of nonsensical, they all make sense in the context of that paragraph but when you look at the novel as a whole there is no apparent story. Then again there are 1611 photos, and I didn’t make my way through all of them so perhaps a full picture story forms once you get through all the images. The individual images are meant to tell smaller narratives, which include both the text as well as the surrounding area, each sticker provides different meaning depending on where it is placed. All of these individual images are then meant to come together to create a bigger overall narrative.