Determining literariness in interactive fiction

✍ Scribed by Randall, Neil

• Book ID: 104628307
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 877 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0010-4817
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00118891

✦ Synopsis

The authors of interactive fiction are beginning to demonstrate a concern for the literariness of their product. Literariness, as defined by Shklovskij and the Russian Formalists, is the quality of "making strange" that which is linguistically familiar, a quality Shklovskij termed ostranenie. By applying the principle of ostranenie, as well as other wellknown literary principles, to the most serious interactive fictions, we can determine if this new genre exhibits the features of literariness. A study of Mindwheel, Brimstone, Breakers, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Portal, and Trinity suggest that the literariness of interactive fiction comes out of its concern both for "making strange" what is familiar and for "making familiar" what is strange.