ABSTRACT

This article explores the influence of digital technology on the practice of reading and writing.  Acknowledging the act of reading on any medium as active and immersive this article explores new possibilities to engage readers further in multimodal literary experiences and considers the roles readers and authors play in digital spaces. Through a history of hypertext and hypermediacy the inherent characteristics of digital technology and the possibilities for fiction that this technology affords is explored. The article proposes that the nature of digital technology engages readers as performers in narrative space and presents writers with the opportunity to author not just the text but the interface through which that is accessed. Multimodal texts can be presented through intradiegetic interfaces, fusing form with content. This shift in practice influences not just how readers engage with texts online but has made multimodal print-based works popular and more accessible too. For writers there are opportunities to author not just the content but also the form and challenges to face from a readership that wants to join in.  

Keywords: Multimodal, hypertext, hypertext fiction, intradiegetic interfaces, interactive narrative, non-linear narrative, digital technology, practices of reading and writing