[does interaction kill immersion?]

woke up. couldn't sleep. nightmares. again.
thought i'd do a search for narrative and hypertext. hrm. google's discoveries are growing - people are writing more and more about this topic. out of pure randomness with eyes drooping from lack of sleep I arbitrarily clicked on "Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web" by Mark Bernstein. Ok. So this article might be considered a little old by digital media/hypertext people - 2001 - but the ideas are interesting.

"We see narrative everywhere. It’s a primitive urge, a way to tie cause to effect, to convert the complexity of our experience to a story that makes sense."

Hrm. Bernstein seems to be taking a very traditional (a.k.a. Aristotelian) view of narrative. For Aristotle drama needs a beginning, middle, and an end, and these seperate parts operate together as a cause and effect chain. For Aristotle (and seemingly for Bernstein) this is emblematic of the way the world operates.

Further along Bernstein begins to draw a parallel between "our need for stories" and websites which should not only "ensnare" readers but allow them to "experience" the "narratives." Hrm. For Bernstein websites which ask readers to fill out surveys, answer questions, in short: websites which call for a certain amount of interaction, increase the distance between website and reader. Reading this I can only think again of Aristotle and his mimesis...especially when Bernstein goes on to explain that web designers/blog writers et al. should SHOW and not TELL. "Don't declare: do." While I also believe that doing makes an impact - take for instance kinesthetic learners who can do maths thanks to all those building blocks and counting of buttons - but what might this mean for electronic literature? Does interaction really spell the death of immersion? Perhaps a new kind of reader is blossoming out there in the ether. A reader who not only clicks and scrolls her way through a story but also merges with the story; each click signifying a step further into the narrative? Like Deena Larsen's Anna who likes "the feel of words against her skin." Perhaps this brings a new "duality" to reading? Reading the narrative WHILE reading the signs - simultaneously.