Weaving the Wovel

We know the nature of reading is changing due to the technology. Well, are you ready for ... the wovel?

Web+novel: you must have guessed the semantic origins, even as the naffness of the term made you groan. (It's as bad, if not worse than blook!)

Where the wovel differs from its more traditional linear counterpart is with its interactivity.

Programmer Jesse Pollack who works for Underland Press declares it has :

...the technical functionality of Web 2.0, the creativity of fiction and the pace of print journalism ...

The wovel is serialised fiction, and works like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books you may remember from your childhood. It allows the readers to choose the direction the plot will take ... which, of course, demands great flexibility on the part of the author. (Go and read some of the fiction on Underland Press' website to see this genre in action.)

Of course Dickens was the master of the serialised novel, and more Alexander McCall-Smith has embraced it more recently. Closer to home, isn't this exactly what Nizam Zakaria has been doing with his Malay novels on his blogs? (Though his site seems to have disappeared now.)

Nizam the wovelist has a nice ring, come to think of it!