Do you want books to be more like television?
There’s no question that technology is changing the way we consume all types of media, including literature. But what happens when you want to turn the novel into something akin to a movie or television show?
One person is trying to do just that, and he calls it the "digi novel". Who is he? It’s Anthony Zuiker, the man behind the popular CSI series (which, I must confess, I have never seen a complete episode). I came across this blog post from the UK site Guardian Unlimited. Here is Zuiker’s idea:
With the modesty of one of the most important men in the American media, Zuiker thinks the digi-novel "offers publishing a chance to catch up with the YouTube generation that has lost passion for reading". That chance comes at a price; Penguin imprint Dutton are paying Zuiker a seven-figure sum.
Zuiker continues:
"I want to give traditional crime novel readers a more immersive experience," Zuiker explains of what’s been labelled "storytelling 2.0".
That immersive experience involves short video clips every few chapters of a novel. Certainly not something your run-of-the-mill paperback offers. Zuiker justifies this idea by saying that he wants "To be rewarded every couple of chapters by seeing something visual…" I think he’s missing the point of reading a novel to begin with.
Okay, here’s my take: He says he wants publishing "to catch up with the YouTube generation," but maybe without even realizing it, I think he wants to turn the entire publishing industry into a YouTube-like concoction that has only a slight resemblance to the publishing industry as we know it today. He wants books to be another medium for movies.
He freely admits that he doesn’t have the attention span to read a 250-page crime novel. Maybe his reading attention deficit stems from a more deeper rooted learning disability. I don’t know. But I’m guessing those people who do read novels that are 250-pages and longer, are not the type of people who want to be interrupted by a video clip every few chapters. That would annoy me to no end.
There’s a deeper argument against this type of book-video integration, however, and I think the blog post author Graeme Allister sums it up pretty nicely:
While the project intrigues, there are some obvious problems. Imagination, is another stumbling block. Having read the five chapters, conjuring up your own images of the characters and locations, the reader is then confronted with a completely different scenario.
And on a more practical level:
More practically, if you read while commuting, on holiday, in bed, sitting in a park or out of Wi-Fi range, the need to log on to continue the story isn’t practical.
The "imagination" problem is something that would turn me off of a "digi book" after the first five chapters and the first short video clip. As I’m reading a novel, I have a certain image in my head of everything from the characters, setting, etc. Watching a video clip would totally shatter that experience. It’s just like watching a movie adaptation of a book is usually a let-down (at least for me it is).
The practical part of Allister’s argument is also worth exploring. If you don’t have wi-fi access, you’re plumb out of luck and won’t be able to continue the story. The other option is to have the video clips stored natively on your reading device. Given how large video files usually are, this doesn’t seem practical either and would severely limit the number of books you could store on your device (my iPhone might be good for this sort of thing, but I’m happy with my ebooks being text-only, thank you).
What do you think? Are "digi books" the future of reading? Or are they just the dream of a man with a short attention span? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!
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