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[Sean Stewart] In which we enter an alternate reality
About ten years ago I stumbled onto a website that, for all intents and purposes, appeared a legitimate portal to the Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications—or the Dharma Initiative. It’s Japanese inspired logo gleamed scientific credibility. It’s many pages revealed grants that had gone to scientists and their experiments. It had a contact page, an about page, a page explaining what it was like to work there--it even had job openings. Being a nosy computer nerd, I snooped around the source code and came across some peculiar lines. There was a glaring security hole which I quickly took advantage of—soon I was deep into restricted areas of the site that spoke of a special experiment on a remote island whose participants included Jack, Sayid, Hugo, Kate and so on.
I cannot tell you how much time passed. I can only relate to you that my fingers tingled and my heart raced. I had become an active participant in an Alternate Reality Game for the TV show Lost. And it changed my understanding of narrative forever.
Welcome to episode 22 of Bleeding Ink. Things are changing with this podcast. It will forever be about writing—but I’m taking it beyond the act of writing a novel. I’m exploring new media—expect interviews with media inventors, with pioneers who are reshaping narrative as we know it. As always, please visit bleedingink.fm to stay up to date on the show. Today it is my honor to present an interview with such an inventor—his name is Sean Stewart—and he’s helped create a new genre for storytelling: Alternate Reality Games.
Alternate Reality Games turn storytelling on its head. It allows for incredible agency from participants and distributes a narrative through familiar, real-world channels. Characters email readers. Txt readers. Call readers. Readers—should I say players?—solve puzzles that not only unlock more story but become the story. If at any point an ARG (alternate reality game) breaks the sacred oath by revealing that it might be a game, it has failed. This is NOT a Game is what immerses the audience into an alternate world. And such immersion it is.
Fans of ARGs have reported broken marriages, lost jobs and a total obsession with uncovering the "truth". It is storytelling dipped in heroin-laced dark chocolate. Swaths of communities form to conquer them. The bonds formed between players are long-lasting—Sean has even been invited to a few weddings of players who met through an ARG.
ARGs are cultural events. Their power lies in their transience. They present an experience like Woodstock or Burning Man, where congregations sever themselves from society, meet with purpose, shed egos, and join something larger than themselves, if only for a brief moment—a moment that ripples throughout the world. What writer wouldn’t want to engage their readers in such a way.
Sean and I talk about his entry into writing for ARGs—How Steven Spielberg helped form a dream team for what is now known as The Beast—the first, modern ARG. We discuss transmedia fiction and how Sean’s novel Cathy’s Book was the first of its kind and how it hit the NY Time Bestsellers list. We discuss games, augmented reality, dungeons and dragons, the components to ARGs, approaches to non-linear storytelling and much, much more. I promise you this episode will blow your mind as it did mine.
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By [email protected] (J.S. Leonard)About ten years ago I stumbled onto a website that, for all intents and purposes, appeared a legitimate portal to the Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications—or the Dharma Initiative. It’s Japanese inspired logo gleamed scientific credibility. It’s many pages revealed grants that had gone to scientists and their experiments. It had a contact page, an about page, a page explaining what it was like to work there--it even had job openings. Being a nosy computer nerd, I snooped around the source code and came across some peculiar lines. There was a glaring security hole which I quickly took advantage of—soon I was deep into restricted areas of the site that spoke of a special experiment on a remote island whose participants included Jack, Sayid, Hugo, Kate and so on.
I cannot tell you how much time passed. I can only relate to you that my fingers tingled and my heart raced. I had become an active participant in an Alternate Reality Game for the TV show Lost. And it changed my understanding of narrative forever.
Welcome to episode 22 of Bleeding Ink. Things are changing with this podcast. It will forever be about writing—but I’m taking it beyond the act of writing a novel. I’m exploring new media—expect interviews with media inventors, with pioneers who are reshaping narrative as we know it. As always, please visit bleedingink.fm to stay up to date on the show. Today it is my honor to present an interview with such an inventor—his name is Sean Stewart—and he’s helped create a new genre for storytelling: Alternate Reality Games.
Alternate Reality Games turn storytelling on its head. It allows for incredible agency from participants and distributes a narrative through familiar, real-world channels. Characters email readers. Txt readers. Call readers. Readers—should I say players?—solve puzzles that not only unlock more story but become the story. If at any point an ARG (alternate reality game) breaks the sacred oath by revealing that it might be a game, it has failed. This is NOT a Game is what immerses the audience into an alternate world. And such immersion it is.
Fans of ARGs have reported broken marriages, lost jobs and a total obsession with uncovering the "truth". It is storytelling dipped in heroin-laced dark chocolate. Swaths of communities form to conquer them. The bonds formed between players are long-lasting—Sean has even been invited to a few weddings of players who met through an ARG.
ARGs are cultural events. Their power lies in their transience. They present an experience like Woodstock or Burning Man, where congregations sever themselves from society, meet with purpose, shed egos, and join something larger than themselves, if only for a brief moment—a moment that ripples throughout the world. What writer wouldn’t want to engage their readers in such a way.
Sean and I talk about his entry into writing for ARGs—How Steven Spielberg helped form a dream team for what is now known as The Beast—the first, modern ARG. We discuss transmedia fiction and how Sean’s novel Cathy’s Book was the first of its kind and how it hit the NY Time Bestsellers list. We discuss games, augmented reality, dungeons and dragons, the components to ARGs, approaches to non-linear storytelling and much, much more. I promise you this episode will blow your mind as it did mine.
Learn
]]>