One of the things I enjoy most about written stories are their ability to make you wander down thought paths. This is also one of my only consolations when reading stories that aren't particularly good, as I can still expand my mind by working out the flaws or pearls of quality that lay buried within it. But in a good story, sometimes I find myself pausing mid-sentence and start to think bout a particular plot twist or story element. Sometimes my eyes continue to drift down the page even though I had stopped reading lines before.
This is one thing that is severely lacking in other kinds of media (with the exception of music and still art which I will get to shortly). Not because of their quality, but because there is no halt to the motion. Even in the slowest movie, video game, or even radio broadcast you are pushed along a river of information that you can only adequately asses after it reaches journey's end. I know you can pause games or films along the way, but to me it is not the same. There is a continuity that is key to these types of media that needs a flow. With books your mind can actually continue the story on tangents that are not even written down, but that you make up as you think. Instead of being pulled down a story, when I read, I feel like I'm strolling through memories at my own leisure. I feel better able to comprehend the world that is being painted. And, even if the story is not that great, I can turn aside from the pages for a while and explore the alley ways that the author didn't think to develop or continue (which happens a great deal when I read my own work!). When I play games or watch movies I feel like I'm 'living' through the story instead of recalling it or being a spectator. In my own head when I read I feel like I can pause the action of a book and yet still be part of it by being able to move through the world as it's frozen and explore any facet I choose. In a movie or game for example you can only really process what you have seen before and what's in front of you; because that is where the action is (this is one reason though, why I like quality 'behind the scenes' additions like LOTR, which would be a subject of another post). Even in non-fiction this is the case. You can pause anywhere you like and go to the places where events occurred or research more deeply into what you see on a page.
I believe my thoughts also apply to still art, and in a different sense, to music. When you observe art you observe a thing that tells not a story, but a representation of a story. Comic books of course fuzzy the line a great deal by combining these two media. Music I feel also should be included here. Yes it does have a continuity that is reminiscent of movies or video games, but instead of pulling you, it leads you. Music has a peculiar ability to let me imagine any sort of story I wish when listening. For example even when listening to music that some people find adventurous or happy I might feel sad or contemplative. Music, like the written word can let a person lose themselves down trains of thought that change or clarify each time it's listened to. This is not to say that video games and movies do not change in meaning, but that usually comes after you watch/experience it.
As I write this however, even in video games is my thinking bit fuzzy. I feel sometimes that in some games that I enjoy quite a bit there are built in pauses, or in some cases branching points. I feel in particular that a good example would be Fallout 3. For those of you who do not know the game, Fallout 3 is an rpg, but an open one. Meaning you can choose to pursue the main plot as quickly as possible, or branch off at any point to explore the rest of the world as you will. But this, in the context of that particular plot has it's own problems. I think a closer example to built in pauses would be games such as Portal 1-2, the Half-Life series, and Bungie's games. These example typically have short but periodical vignette scenes or quiet breaths where the player can then absorb particular parts of the story. I think, in particular the Marathon trilogy of Bungie does an excellent job in this where the story is actually told through text. The gaming part then becomes just a tool so one can get to the next terminal which you can read and think about as you search for the next one.
To go back to books and written stories, this is the effect I hope to achieve in my writing (hopefully because of quality). Reader's should have the freedom to explore the dark or shaded areas of a novel and fill in the blanks. Even the most thorough plots leave so much unexplored, and indeed, the more complete a world is the more questions a reader then has. A good story should be like the most complex maze every imagined: because that maze is built by every step a reader takes in whatever direction is chose.
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