The Nebula Conference & Events

What is an interactive novel? How does modern interactive fiction differ from the choose-your-own-adventure books of our childhood? How do we make readers/players feel like their choices matter in the story? Join us to explore how interactive fiction can be a bridge between gaming and reading, change the way we think about linear story structure, and give readers the satisfaction of having agency in creating their own story.

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Video games are the most lucrative entertainment industry sector, with 65% of the US population playing regularly. What can SFF authors writing in non-game mediums — novelists, writers of short stories, novellas and novelettes, etc. — learn from gaming? What do video games teach us about world-building? How is video game storytelling the ultimate example of “show, don’t tell,” and what techniques can writers extract from it to use in a non-visual medium? How do video games create compelling characters with a spare minimum of dialogue/description, and how can we as authors learn to do the same? While our readers may not be able to control our stories as directly as players in a game, what can we learn from gaming to create the same feeling of first-person urgency through deep POV? What video game titles in particular do panelists feel have the most to teach us as SFF authors?