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Words with Geoff Ryman. Geoff Ryman is the author of several successful novels, mostly science fiction. His novels have won the British Science Fiction Association Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Arthur C Clarke Award and the John W Campbell Memorial Award. He is also the author of the online novel, 253. 
Posted on Saturday 11 August 2001 
The Copydesk:
You were one of the first writers to embrace the idea of an online
novel. What do you think of the idea that traditional books may
eventually be replaced by their digital counterparts?
Geoff Ryman: Printed books will be here for some time. Most people who write for the Web write as if they were writing for paper anyway. The Web is mostly a distribution media for documents that only really work when you print them out. Once you print something out, it becomes the old medium, not the new. Reading online is a painful experience because the screen quality is so awful. People search, scan, read summaries and then download to print. They do as little reading online as possible. This means that creating an environment in words and letting people explore it online doesn't work. They want to download it and print. Many readers to 253 complained there wasn't a Word version to download. Others found they had the patience to read only ten or so characters online. The overwhelming bulk of feedback is from people who enjoyed the printed version more. Reading online is jerky and uncomfortable and distracting because hyperlinks, particularly links in the text, keep offering you decisions and distractions. Links in the text, as in 253 are particularly prone to killing the next couple of lines. People have to stop to decide if they will read on or follow it. They may only scan the rest of the page in order to get back to the link. Good writing aims to immerse the reader in a made up world or a coherent argument. Online media keep bouncing them out of the argument... and bouncing the reader back towards print. Things may change, but only slowly as screen quality improves, and we learn how to use links and to create art objects that are both written and programmed. There is a one gripping, immersive and entertaining kind of fiction online and in a digital interactive format -- games. Games are already a huge, massive entertainment media. Over time they will develop more dramatic qualities as well. But even they work best offline. To find out more about Geoff Ryman, and his online novel, visit 253. |
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