] A former English professor who teaches executives how to ] write, Mr. Brown, 59, calls "Intimacies" a digital ] epistolary novel, or DEN, terms that he has trademarked. ] The plot of "Intimacies" is based on "Pamela," the ] 18th-century work by Samuel Richardson that is one of ] Western literature's first epistolary novels. It is the ] format of Mr. Brown's work rather than its story that ] makes it postmodern: it is meant to be read with the aid ] of a software interface designed by Billy McQuown, an ] employee at Mr. Brown's consulting firm, Communication ] Associates. ] ] ] The story unfolds through e-mail messages, ] instant-message conversations and Web sites, all within a ] window generated by the DEN software; the program can be ] downloaded free from Mr. Brown's Web site, ] www.greatamericannovel.com. [ I know from some past (and fairly spirited) discussions here on MS, that reading, and the various forms of content publication, is a popular issue. This struck me as a fairly innovative development, though I'm not sure it's one that appeals to my already well-aired predilections. The article discusses the use of email conversations as a story telling mechanism, which isn't particularly unique, of course, but the first of them that i read, called Exegesis, was definitely worthwhile. Anyway, I memed it more for the fact that it's a software based novel, which speaks to the possibility of more interactive storytelling in the near future, perhaps. -k] |