The Transformation of Narrative in the Digital Age: Focusing on Hypertext and Interactive Fiction
TL;DR
It is argued that digital narrative does not replace literary narrative but broadens what narrative can do, by redefining readers, players, and viewers from passive recipients into agents who actively participate in completing the narrative.
Abstract
This paper examines how literature, games, and film influence one another and reshape narrative form in the digital media environment. Classical narratology presupposes a linear text read from beginning to end in a single order, and therefore has inherent limitations in accounting for digital narratives that branch into multiple paths depending on the reader's choices. To address this, the paper synthesizes Manovich's theory of the database, Aarseth's concept of cybertext, Ryan's possible-worlds theory, and Juul's notion of games as “half-real” objects, constructing a theoretical framework for understanding interactive narrative. Building on this framework, the paper analyzes three cases: the hypertext novel Afternoon, a story(Joyce, 1987), the interactive fiction game 80 Days (Inkle, 2014), and the Netflix interactive film Bandersnatch(Slade, 2018). Afternoon maximizes interpretive indeterminacy through a structure of concealed links, redefining the reader as a “pathfinder.” 80 Days assigns systemic weight to choice through a multi-resource management system involving funds, time, and health. Bandersnatch interweaves the immersive conventions of conventional film(immediacy) with self-referential devices that deliberately betray those conventions(hypermediacy). These differences show that interactive narrative cannot be reduced to a single model; rather, each medium offers a distinct solution to the shared problem of interactivity, shaped by its own material conditions. Through these three cases, the paper argues that digital narrative does not replace literary narrative but broadens what narrative can do, by redefining readers, players, and viewers from passive recipients into agents who actively participate in completing the narrative. The paper further indicates how these theoretical insights can be applied to digital literacy curriculum design and to the planning and authoring of interactive content, thereby articulating the paper's practical relevance from an applied-humanities perspective. The paper further discusses the emotional investment and questions of responsibility that arise in interactive narrative, as well as the implications of these shifts for the concept of reading competence in literary education, and proposes an integrated framework for understanding narrative change in the digital age.