I am devising an interesting strategy to develop a complex, highly integrated structure of the entire novels, namely Azuris, whose sneak in preview (headings and artworks only) can be found on my blog. I want to design it such that it does not necessarily read from the first page to the last page story-wise. Similar to adventure-oriented (interlinked pages) stories and interactive text-based adventures, I intend to develop its non-linearity so that the reader has many options to read it to suit their level/current stage of intellectual adventure within its context. The challenge is to design its intellectual contents and structure without the design of electronic/interactive texts and games, let alone the format of ordinary book that is readable either on computer or as a paperback. This will definitely come down to the use of intertextuality amongst many literary techniques and strategies so as to achieve this novelistic integrity. Correct me if I am misusing intertextuality as my term of compiling and packaging hidden and unlockable sections of information throughout the novelistic composition that will require reference to other textual parts, chapters or sections within itself. The dark side of this design is its readership who must be willing to embrace the challenge of reading complex, highly imaginative, abstract and detective novels. However, I plan to make it as readable and simple as possible, and all-ages-appropriate. The good side is that it will restrict the level of its conveyance/accessibility of intellectual/literary/thematic contents to the reader, according to how much it is used so far. For example, if the reader skips many pages to the end, its design is such that it will not make any sense and therefore will require the reader to go back and read thoroughly. Can anyone help locate useful resources, whether on literary websites, writing guides and so on, if at all that will help guide my design of the novels?
All I can imagine is how epic a choose your own adventure Game of Thrones book would be... every choice you make is wrong and somebody dies!
Hahahaha! That's real. @Azurisy you sort of lost me with the introduction. I think you might struggle in print form - it could make a good iphone app or something. I don't know if they're actually popular, but there are a lot of text based choose your own adventure games on mobile devices. It lends itself well to the format.
