the future of literature

What next do you think?
What would be the next big thing after Sci-Fi and Fanction?
Most of the words are now being halfed nicknamed abbreviated as well cut and shipsghaped to half numbers and half words who knows halfed letters next all for the sake of mobile phones computers and speed
Are we heading towards ''no words left to write with'' now that we are faced with tablets to read from and keyboard taken off for the sake of touch screen and technology?

here is my opening thoughts
''there was once a word that grew into a language but unfortunatley it keeps getting jammed against technical speed just like a car against traffic lights thus createing queues and ultimately havock oh end punctuation is another way of jamming technology too it slows down my writing and encumber my keyboards with unecessary stops grrrrrr''

Please discuss

My personal future regarding the odds and ends of HOW TO READ and WHAT TO READ lies definetely in the past. (19th century Naturalism...preferably french)

...but back to your question. COMICS will be the future. Half sentences, grunting...in short: modern communication and pics = COMICS

Throw your TV away...

I don't know what'll become of literature in the future. I personally wouldn't be able to live without reading a book but a lot of my peers straight out DETEST reading and those that do read do not read literature. I am somewhat afraid of what the future will hold but I hope there will always be enough people that read books so that people will keep writing them.

As for how we are going to read them, I think ereaders will become standard or something in that direction. I have one already and I read a lot of books off of that thing and I'm really pleased with it. Paper will gradually disappear if you ask me.

There's never been so many books sold and read as now in whatever format. The novel is not dead, but the general classifications keep on growing - just look at the Dark Romance vampire stuff, which is very new.

The other thing is that regarding literature, people look into it when their reading develops. I began reading war stories and pulpy horror, but I progressed on from there and began to read around a lot. Reading by an individual develops over time. How long can comics sustain reading - good as they are? People don't stay in one place with their reading.

It's really a flipping coin. It could go sour, or it could get better. I absolutely hate the transformation to LCD screens as a preferable outlet. And it scares the hell out of me as a writer. If there ever comes a time I'm able to get long enough work published, say a novel or a book of poetry, and my only reasonable outlet is through download then I will be forced to refuse and give up my dream, as it would have already been dead. I don't want that for me, or for anyone else.


"...but back to your question. COMICS will be the future. Half sentences, grunting...in short: modern communication and pics = COMICS"

Ah but something such as a graphic novel is a multi-art, like video games. It's been relevant for years. I wouldn't see it as the future of literature, but this new found obsession with pictures and the claim that written word isn't gripping could mean a rise before a fall. I understand people may not take learning as being very important now days, and it's easier to look at a picture then to read lines of text, but it would be harmful as a people to lose written word in place of pictures. When I was little they helped, as I was learning to read and it was difficult to understand so many different words in so many different contexts. But I'd like to think that reading and learning will make a comeback.

The way I see it, it won't be a literary work nor a comic, but something in-between.

Mr. Wolf is right when he said:

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Originally Posted by Revolte

I understand people may not take learning as being very important now days, and it's easier to look at a picture then to read lines of text, but it would be harmful as a people to lose written word in place of pictures.

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That's why I think the upcoming generation might try to mix both into one. Comics could be an example of this actually, but Comics seem to have their focus on images than text and/or storyline. I don't know if it can be called a genre itself, but what if someone writes a book then squeezes some pictures here and there (ie major characters, cities, items etc.) Or maybe print every 'page' of the book with a visual background (in place of the usual milky-white blank of the paper) that is related one way or another with the story so far? That idea was in my head for some time now, I wonder if I will ever get to write a story good enough for publishing. But once I do, I intend to make my book like that. Of course, that will mean looking for a suitable artist (a collaboration of some sort) but it's worth a try, in my opinion.

Why stick to pictures? We had a similar discussion in the poetry thread, and the question I asked was could multimedia enhance the language? I still don't know why it couldn't, but it's early days yet.

We of the print generation might think that pictures are a distraction from the text, let alone video etc, but I don't see why it should be so in the long run. it's just a case of getting the mind used to it. the idea that the best, most serious and important ideas will be ensconced in print only is merely our narrow mindedness. With multimedia and our brains' undoubted ability to assimilate lots of info, then i think it's a distinct possibility that there will be a literary mash up with other media. Why not? In fact how many of us choose to listen to music as we read? it's not a big step away from that to include pictures and animation. imagine playing chapters of book as you read it. i think that would be great. All we need is the audience to realise they want it and be willing to pay for it.

A story in pictures (Comic) gives us a finished interpretation...I want to imagine the scenes by myself (with the help of the author's word-power.

Paulclem, good point there. But I think one of the most magical things about literature is that it's a silent work in which the author (and the reader) breath life into it as it enters the mind. We imagine voices, sounds, personalities and so on. Sometimes not the way the author intend it to be, but that's not always a bad thing.

Sure, why not? Mixing soft, tranquil music with a thrilling story at night is still one of my own personal delights =D

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Originally Posted by crusoe

A story in pictures (Comic) gives us a finished interpretation...I want to imagine the scenes by myself (with the help of the author's word-power.

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I don't disagree - and no doubt this will continue for those who want it that way. I just wonder what the digital revolution will do for readers who have been brought up on reading screens and with the access they have to multimedia. Putting the two together without debasing either medium will take skill and sensitivity, and no doubt there will be grosser interventions - again forthose that want them.

In poetry, just as line length, stresses, internal rhymes and different forms enhance the words, so too could other appropriate effects such as colour - fade in and outs, highlighted words etc etc. The language would still be there, but with visual as well as language effects.

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Originally Posted by Revolte

It's really a flipping coin. It could go sour, or it could get better. I absolutely hate the transformation to LCD screens as a preferable outlet. And it scares the hell out of me as a writer. If there ever comes a time I'm able to get long enough work published, say a novel or a book of poetry, and my only reasonable outlet is through download then I will be forced to refuse and give up my dream, as it would have already been dead. I don't want that for me, or for anyone else.

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I know that feel, and understand your pain. But for me it was not the LCD screens and the kindles. It was Guttenberg's devil machine which killed any aspiration I had to be a poet. I mean, was Virgil's oeuvre churned out by some expressionless machine making identical and soulless copies, or where his works copied out by skilled artisans who imbued into every line of every word the art of the human soul, matching the passion of their curves to the passion of his words. Gutenberg killed literature.

Excellent post Alex. :lol:

At the moment a lot of the internet is text based, and that's fine. A few years ago i wondered whether my kids would move away from text and some other video/ second life/ avatar interaction would take over facebook and other mediums. It hasn't yet, though there is an interesting interaction of text, photos, comments, symbols, videos etc which can be drilled into to eke out more information if you want. It seems to have been like this for a while after that initial jump into the internet.

I think it has its advantages - there is a barrier, as there is on here, which means that you can converse quite freely with people wthout them trying to intimidate you in all the usual ways. Even a kid can stand up for themselves in text. It makes a comfortable playing field on which to converse. It seems to work as the more rabid members don't seem to last: they don't forge and hold any digital relationships.

We and many others enjoy reading, and so the market won't just disappear, but it will be interesting to see what is made of it. Pwerhaps there'll be artistic digital installations which are interactive and include art, literature and music. It ust takes imaginatin.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

\ they don't forge and hold any digital relationships.

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Good, they live in a real world and know the difference between grass and code.

Nice opinions

Yeah, virtual worlds seem to be just the hit in this generation. But even those virtual worlds have their share of literature, believe it or not. I checked second life, for example, and found a good number of lands that have libraries. There are digital 'books' in there that you can purchase using ingame currency (or whatever) but that also brings up the subject of reading off the screen instead of papers.

I fear for our beloved literature in the coming decades.

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Originally Posted by Revolte

Good, they live in a real world and know the difference between grass and code.

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Why wouldn't they? The two are not mutually exclusive, and I don't know about anyone else but neither digital nor real world relationships impinge on each other. I just conduct them at different times.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Why wouldn't they? The two are not mutually exclusive, and I don't know about anyone else but neither digital nor real world relationships impinge on each other. I just conduct them at different times.

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It happens, perhaps not for everyone, but it happens. Sometimes they don't even realize it until it's thrown in their face. It happened to me and I know I'm not alone.

I don't remember ANYBODY in -for instance- William Gibson-Books
to read at all...John Brunner, P.K.Dick...nobody in those SF-Novels
reads anything but screens. Well, there you have it.

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Originally Posted by Revolte

It happens, perhaps not for everyone, but it happens. Sometimes they don't even realize it until it's thrown in their face. It happened to me and I know I'm not alone.

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There's a lot of mileage - or will be - in ideas like that. It might spawn a new genre of fiction. What about calling it Digital Social Manners - a kind of Pride and Prejudice with the internet and phones?

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

There's a lot of mileage - or will be - in ideas like that. It might spawn a new genre of fiction. What about calling it Digital Social Manners - a kind of Pride and Prejudice with the internet and phones?

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Can the phones and the internet be characters? Because that might be a fun sort of read, as long as they don't try and matrix it up.

I'd suggest that the type of books you read, if you read at all will be very much defined by your position in society. It's already visible today even among the youth, literary classics will be reserved for the 'intellectuals' so to say who may dable in modern literature depending on their inclinations but will ultimately snubb it in favour of literature from aprox. 1860-1960 with some exceptions of course. Then you'll have those that read a combination of dodgy classics (a la Jane Austen) with current literature being the educated but not necessarily particularly intelligent individual. Next you have the average joe of reading who mostly goes for murder myseries and some 'literature' but really not much at all. Then you have those that read shoddy current novels. Then you have those that read nothing but porn. Lastly, you get those who don't read at all. Of course though people will skip from one group to the other every so often (we all need a little porn sometimes) but I'd say it's pretty fixed.

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Originally Posted by Dina12

I'd suggest that the type of books you read, if you read at all will be very much defined by your position in society. It's already visible today even among the youth, literary classics will be reserved for the 'intellectuals' so to say who may dable in modern literature depending on their inclinations but will ultimately snubb it in favour of literature from aprox. 1860-1960 with some exceptions of course. Then you'll have those that read a combination of dodgy classics (a la Jane Austen) with current literature being the educated but not necessarily particularly intelligent individual. Next you have the average joe of reading who mostly goes for murder myseries and some 'literature' but really not much at all. Then you have those that read shoddy current novels. Then you have those that read nothing but porn. Lastly, you get those who don't read at all. Of course though people will skip from one group to the other every so often (we all need a little porn sometimes) but I'd say it's pretty fixed.

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The problem with wannabe technologists is that they put others industries out of a job whilst they ponder on computer screens that are highly deffective for memory and eyesight long term.
The fact of the matter is tablets and iphones aim is to rid language and money printed on paper as a something of futiuristic garbbage.
It also rids paper making books bookshops printers all out of a job and affect real cash in hand too.
This type of short sighted technology increases illiteracy because many people I know dislike reading off a screen which will then discourage them from reading all together the same goes to handwriting which is now being replaced by a touch screen.
Numeracy will be on the decline because with plastic money that you never get to see or handle one is soon out of touch with number counting and adding and mental arithmetic is out of the door.
I predict a very declining illiterate and shortsighted (where is Specs Severs' gone!!) population iof the future.
Rather blasphesmist if you ask me.

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Originally Posted by Dina12

I'd suggest that the type of books you read, if you read at all will be very much defined by your position in society. It's already visible today even among the youth, literary classics will be reserved for the 'intellectuals' so to say who may dable in modern literature depending on their inclinations but will ultimately snubb it in favour of literature from aprox. 1860-1960 with some exceptions of course. Then you'll have those that read a combination of dodgy classics (a la Jane Austen) with current literature being the educated but not necessarily particularly intelligent individual. Next you have the average joe of reading who mostly goes for murder myseries and some 'literature' but really not much at all. Then you have those that read shoddy current novels. Then you have those that read nothing but porn. Lastly, you get those who don't read at all. Of course though people will skip from one group to the other every so often (we all need a little porn sometimes) but I'd say it's pretty fixed.

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1.It's already visible today even among the youth, literary classics will be reserved for the 'intellectuals' so to say who may dable in modern literature depending on their inclinations but will ultimately snubb it in favour of literature from aprox. 1860-1960 with some exceptions of course.

2.Then you'll have those that read a combination of dodgy classics (a la Jane Austen) with current literature being the educated but not necessarily particularly intelligent individual

3.Next you have the average joe of reading who mostly goes for murder myseries and some 'literature' but really not much at all.

4.Then you have those that read shoddy current novels.

5.Then you have those that read nothing but porn.

6.Lastly, you get those who don't read at all

7.Of course though people will skip from one group to the other every so often (we all need a little porn sometimes) but I'd say it's pretty fixed

I put the 7th Point in, so that the Sins and Samurais are complete

That's one cool List.:thumbs_up

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Originally Posted by Dina12

I'd suggest that the type of books you read, if you read at all will be very much defined by your position in society. It's already visible today even among the youth, literary classics will be reserved for the 'intellectuals' so to say who may dable in modern literature depending on their inclinations but will ultimately snubb it in favour of literature from aprox. 1860-1960 with some exceptions of course. Then you'll have those that read a combination of dodgy classics (a la Jane Austen) with current literature being the educated but not necessarily particularly intelligent individual. Next you have the average joe of reading who mostly goes for murder myseries and some 'literature' but really not much at all. Then you have those that read shoddy current novels. Then you have those that read nothing but porn. Lastly, you get those who don't read at all. Of course though people will skip from one group to the other every so often (we all need a little porn sometimes) but I'd say it's pretty fixed.

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I'd hardly think reading work from earlier years to be a show of intellect. That's somewhat insulting to writers of today as well. And a lot of older work is crap too.

Handmaid's Tale is incredibly boring, no matter how famous it is or good it could have been. It somehow takes a good idea and makes it a drag. Shakespeare is overrated. As well are a lot of the older writers.

There is plenty of crap out now too of course. But you didn't have to be born in the 1800's to 1960 to be a great writer. Nor do you have to have a greater liking to the works of those years to be smart.

All work, of all years is relevant. Bad writing is bad writing, there is nothing more to it then that. Reading and writing aren't the same task either. You can be influenced by something you read (as well other mediums) but it's not likely going to decide the whole of how you write. You can't have reading without the writers.

I will support the idea of a link between literature and intellect. But the genre, year or other insignificant matters just doesn't decide how good the work is. People might think it makes them classy and sharp to have an obsession with classic work, but it doesn't mean jack. Those who think so likely aren't that bright themselves.

And even worse, if that did happen. That is death of literature as an art. And that won't happen, because we will always exist.

The academic world is a joke, the way they handle, propose and view the act of learning is an insult to the experience. So I wouldn't be surprised if some people got the impression that literature is some weird kind of history lesson, and act like they are brilliant by discussing the souls and meanings of lines written before they were born (when in reality the line probably meant what the line said). But that doesn't actually make them anything, but easy to laugh at.

I wish the Future of Literature to be Virtual Reality Devices.
You buy that Device for the Book of your choice and the VR
enables you to follow the Story from inside the Story.
Two kinds: The guided Tour or the "Adventure-Version" for
hearty individuals.

Imagine: The Gouilotine-Scene near the end of "The Tale of two Cities". Heads will role and you're in the middle of the Crowd...creepy. Or you and Carnacki the Ghostfinder are on tour together. Not to speak of Dracula and so on...oh Dear, oh Dear.

Now I gotta dash down to the Copyright-Office to put in a claim.

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Originally Posted by crusoe

I wish the Future of Literature to be Virtual Reality Devices.
You buy that Device for the Book of your choice and the VR
enables you to follow the Story from inside the Story.
Two kinds: The guided Tour or the "Adventure-Version" for
hearty individuals.

Imagine: The Gouilotine-Scene near the end of "The Tale of two Cities". Heads will role and you're in the middle of the Crowd...creepy. Or you and Carnacki the Ghostfinder are on tour together. Not to speak of Dracula and so on...oh Dear, oh Dear.

Now I gotta dash down to the Copyright-Office to put in a claim.

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You know what? that's a very unique idea, it just might happen :D

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Originally Posted by Monamy

You know what? that's a very unique idea, it just might happen :D

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I REALLY HOPE SO :iagree:

The first Movie-Device I'm gonna buy is "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", lol

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Originally Posted by Revolte

Can the phones and the internet be characters? Because that might be a fun sort of read, as long as they don't try and matrix it up.

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They could act as other steroetypes such as oracles or consciences, be vehicles for disembodied spirits or a God, of provide portals into other realms and worlds. Or they could just be characters seen purely via their phone. A short story using text chat will probably have been done - e-mails too, but skype, facebook or a forum like this could add another dimension to a story.

Loads a scope.

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Originally Posted by crusoe

I wish the Future of Literature to be Virtual Reality Devices.
You buy that Device for the Book of your choice and the VR
enables you to follow the Story from inside the Story.
Two kinds: The guided Tour or the "Adventure-Version" for
hearty individuals.

Imagine: The Gouilotine-Scene near the end of "The Tale of two Cities". Heads will role and you're in the middle of the Crowd...creepy. Or you and Carnacki the Ghostfinder are on tour together. Not to speak of Dracula and so on...oh Dear, oh Dear.

Now I gotta dash down to the Copyright-Office to put in a claim.

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That's the kind of thing I was thinking of. As you say with text to speech, you can participate and have the monologue going, or find the next chapter written in interesting places that you have to seek out.

How long is it going to be befoe we get the kind of affordable, immersive virtual reality world which you can control via a glove. Could be pretty good. The environmnts of modern games are very well rendered, and getting bigger. The PS2 Grand Theft Auto San Andreas environment took about 25 minutes to drive/ ride across.

I'd prefer living in my novels of choice instead in this...in this...ok, no cussing.

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Originally Posted by crusoe

I'd prefer living in my novels of choice instead in this...in this...ok, no cussing.

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I see it more of an enhanced interactive film like environment rather than a lifestyle. i bet they could do it now.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I see it more of an enhanced interactive film like environment rather than a lifestyle. i bet they could do it now.

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:iagree:

Maybe someday -if you're qualified -you can choose your Work-Enviroment that way ? But what happens to all those leaves in the wind who populize the
Planet ? Dark Visions...

The idea must feed somebodys greed to really take off...

Well art and leisure grows with economics.

Homeworking is a lot more available now with the internet. I've even done some myself, and we can routinely work from home if there's a particular project to work on. It would be good for meetings - a VR environment.

I buy one if I can send my Hologram in to work my shift...It works, I read...The perfect Dream-Team.