"If you click it, scroll down and continue"
"If not, continue posting pictures of cats"
Thus would a Choose Your Own Adventure book might begin, if it were about people reading the articles of excellent writers on the internet. These books are interesting in several points, both grammatically (not interesting, I know, but bear with me) and literarily (which is a real word ... I'm pretty sure ... yep!).
There are three grammatical persons in English: first, second and third. Most forms of literature that I am familiar with use the third person (he, she, it, they). Personal accounts, diaries and similar works understandably use first person (I, me, we). With most literature having to do with people or their descriptions of other people, that leaves very little room for second person. For the most part, second person usage outside of instruction manuals seems awkward and presumptive: "You foolishly decided to trample the flower. Thousands of years from now, mutant plant-gerbils will run the plant. I hope you're happy." Well, not exactly like that, but something to that effect.
The point is this: we don't like being told what to do. We like making our own choices. Thus, real life and games allow us to control what happens (At least the latter does, anyway). Literature, on the other hand, is a recounting of things that other people did. First and third person predominate.
Enter the choose your own adventure books (CYOA), a form of interactive fiction, as the genre is also called. Researching this topic gave search results with several articles entitled "Choose Your Own X Adventure," with X being some descriptive adjective or noun. Regardless of the nature of the books themselves, they appear to be widely recognized (Or at least among a smattering of various article writers). After expanding the databases included in the search, I finally found some articles specifically addressing CYOA books.
One comment should be made: CYOA books aren't strictly literature. Yes, they have words, tell stories, and are sometimes artistically meritorious. However, they also rely on the action of the reader. Hence, the grouping under interactive fiction.
In my personal collection, I have a number of these books, mostly from the main Choose Your Own Adventure series, with one from the Time Machine series, Search for Dinosaurs. The latter series features historical settings that both entertain the reader and provide some tidbits of history, archaeology or astronomy. The former series features fictional stories concerning various adventures of the reader. A great deal of the ones I have are set in space or deal with the future and technology. (Also, many of the books have endings that result in your death. I guess that's to increase suspense and provide a result for failure or poor choices, but sometimes it gets annoying. Very few books have all-death-free endings.)
However, there is a natural barrier to the genre in the form of length limit: Edward Packard, the creator of the series, admits that "there is a built-in limitation in interactive fiction," and further discusses publisher requirements for "multi-book contracts whereby the packager agrees to deliver anywhere from 6 to 20 or even more books to be written by various authors, all of whom are required to follow a particular formula ... [to write] a certain number of pages." Despite these limitations, authors have successfully used the genre, and Packard goes on to discuss various examples. Digital books provide more leeway for the authors and provide a logical transition. I also posit that text-based games like Zork and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also provide an expansive outlet for the genre.
Another issue, at least one I've noticed, is the potential of a narrative-time loop. This possibility exists in book and game form. For instance, in Search for Dinosaurs, the reader may accidentally bump into a fellow time-traveler. One option eventually sends the reader back to the beginning of the quest. By following the same path, you can "meet" him again and again. Games can guard against this by adding other factors, like time limitation, scenarios, moving characters around, and ... "motivations" for keeping going (You are likely to be eaten by a grue.)
The biggest issue I see is characterization. As mentioned by Packard, the author is only given a limited amount of space in which to write the story. After character introductions and pages for endings, there isn't much room for characterization of either the reader-character or the other characters. Also, with the reader being the main character, authors must be wary of how they characterize him or her, or risking alienating the reader. For the most part, the reader-character is amiable, androgynous and interested in whatever the book's topic seems to be. In context of the CYOA, this is acceptable. The reader knows how she feels about herself, and brings her likes and dislikes into the story.
However, in the context of most other literature, the reader-character is flat. Because of the attempt to be apolitical, nonreligious, etc... to focus the reader on the story and interesting facts, the main character goes largely undeveloped and becomes uninteresting from blandness. For instance, whether you agree with Harry Potter, Snape, or James Potter's lifestyles is irrelevant: they all have certain views, they all do certain things and behave in certain ways. Whether we like them or not, they are there. Their strength as characters derives from their potential divisiveness. Before I go to far afield to talk about Snape vs James as the right match for Lily, I will conclude this thought by summary: Divisive characters are more memorable than agreeable or bland ones.
Are CYOA books, then, worth the trouble? Yes. Good entries in the series allow for gameplay, reading and sometimes the satiation of curiosity.
"You have reached the ending of the article. However, there are five vampires surrounding you, and your back is to a thousand-foot cliff. Additionally, a grue looks up at you from a foothold on the ledge. Have fun getting out of this one, hero."
The End
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Works Cited:
Bischoff, David, Doug Henderson, and Alex Niño. Search for Dinosaurs. Toronto: Bantam, 1984. Print.Packard, Edward B. "Interactive Fiction For Children: Boon Or Bane?." School Library Journal 34.(1987): 40-41. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 20 July 2013.
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