When an author puts in plain sight, upon his website, the following quote, “I thought it would be annoying to read, you got to figure two things. He’s either:
(1) a masochist or
(2) he has a great sense of humor.
I’m going to go with “2″ because the quote continues, …”but I couldn’t stop. I loved it.”
What author? What website? What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis? I’m just talking about…
the GreatAmericanNovel.com, an entertainment website dedicated to bringing site surfers new stories in an intriguing new format, the “Digital Epistolary Novel.
Say whaaaat? What the heck does “epistolary” mean?! Don’t look at me. It’s not like I studied english at Harvard or anything. Thankfully, dictionary.com is never far from my desktop so I surfed there and this is how it educated me. “Epistolary” means “of or associated with letters or the writing of letters; written in the form of or carried on by letters or correspondence.” Okay. We can get with that.
Plays, novels, and historic non-fiction being written through the conceit of exchanged letters is an ancient and well accepted literary art form. The “Intimacies” author Eric (known only as so on his site) has done is to contemporize the epistolary format, adapting to modern modes of correspondence, i.e. texting, emailing, and voice mailing.
Eric writes on GreatAmericanNovel.com that Intimacies is delivered in digital form, all entirely possible, and all “representing ways we now learn of events in our world.”
Intimacies is not click and read. The site surfer must first download the DEN software. GAN.com webmaster claims the software is virus-free. I had no trouble with the download or with the software launch. Currently, the DEN is only available on PC-compatible machines (sorry Mac users: much cooler computer, much fewer software possibilities).
Through the DEN format, we don’t read “pages”. We read the actual email exchange of the novel’s characters. At times I felt alternately like an assignment officer from Homeland Security or like a nosy co-worker. The sense of voyeurism heightened my reading experience and drew me into an otherwise familiar story line. That coupled with the byte-sized email and text pager nugget DEN presentation made the reading Intimacies quick and painless. Noveling for Generation IM? You betcha.
Intimacies is the story of two young professionals who meet when an email sent by one ends up in the wrong inbox. Curious, their initial exchanges turn into a virtual attraction. They tentatively agree to a real meeting. Enroute to the meeting, one of them is brutally assaulted. A series of surprises and revelations follows.
Eric makes it clear that Intimacies is proof of concept. I hope he doesn’t expect to win a Pulitzer for his work. What he does expect if for other aspiring writers to glom onto the DEN format and run with it. Once the beta testing is complete, other authors will be able to download the DEN, write their own novel and upload it to GreatAmericanNovel, DEN (pardon the pun), maybe we sitesurfers could then vote on which really is the next great American novel.
