1. Digital Fiction, Readers and ‘You’: An Empirical Approach Alice Bell, Astrid Ensslin, and Jen Smith

2. Overview What is digital fiction? Reading Digital Fiction Research context – Narrative ‘you’ Empirical study with The Princess Murderer – Method – Some initial findings

3. CAVE Fiction Web Hypertext Fiction Interactive Fiction (IF)CD-ROM Hypertext Fiction Flash Fiction Literary Videogames App-Fiction

4. How can we use empirical literary methods to examine reader responses to digital fictions? Do readers’ responses to digital fictions corroborate or challenge current theories of narrative ‘you’ ?

5. ‘You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveller. Relax. Concentrate.’ Print fiction ‘In Shadow of the Colossus, you play as an unknown soldier, tasked with finding and killing 16 Colossi that roam the land, in order to appease the spirits that inhabit a shrine.’ Videogame ‘You’ve funnelled the lion’s share of the palace’s improvement budget…’ Interactive Fiction (IF)

6. Ensslin and Bell 2012

10. Empirical Approach: Initial Study 3 readers (1 female, 2 male) Part 1: Free reading to provide ‘naturalistic’ reading experience (Swann & Allington 2009). Part 2: Structured reading for ‘experimental’ (Swann & Allington, 2009) empirical research and to present ‘textual stimulus, enduring properties of the text [that] do not vary with the reader or the reading situation’ (Bortolussi & Dixon 2003).

11. 11 You = ‘me the reader’ You = ‘a fictional character’

12. Address ‘you’ ‘Double-deixis’ → ‘Fictional reference’.

13. P1 “I’m the reader” there, because it’s asking me “Don’t I believe in their pain?”, which makes me think, “Do you know what? I don’t. I remember I’m reading fiction”. ‘So I’m going to stick with [me the reader], but if I was reading it as one individual sentence and had not read the one before, then I’m trying to save the character by being the character because I’m emotional and I do feel things.' You = characterYou = reader Don’t you x saves you x You look x your hands x

14. P2 ‘It’s exactly how I feel at the moment reading it. I don’t really believe the pain.’ ‘It’s a bit between’ ‘It’s like a physical action. “You look at your hands dripping in blood”. There’s no interpretation in that. The reader’s hands aren’t dripping in blood. The character’s hands must be.’ You = characterYou = reader Don’t you x saves you x You look x your hands x

15. P3 ‘It’s trying to connect you with what’s going on so rather than randomly clicking, it’s trying to suggest that, trying to get you to think about your action while you’re doing it.’ ‘It’s going back to a reference of looking at your actions again, rather than earlier, just up there, I felt like it was talking about your. It’s saying “Look at your hands, they’re dripping in blood”. I feel it’s going back more towards the character’. You = characterYou = reader Don’t you x saves you x You look x your hands x

16. What has the data told us? Resistant 'actualised address’ (cf. Stockwell 2009: 150-2, Gavins 2007: 170-2) Phelan's (1994) 'ideal narrative audience' (cf. Whiteley 2011) ‘Double-deixis’ Style of reader responses

17. Conclusions and Future Research New method for ‘you’. Applicable to more texts. Analysis combined with empirical approach. character  you  reader. ‘You’ more generally

18. References Bell, A. and Ensslin, A. (2011) ‘Second-Person Narration in Hypertext Fiction.’ Narrative 19 (3): 311–29. Bortolussi, M. and Dixon, P. (2003) Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brunyé, T., Ditman, T., Mahoney, C., and Taylor, H. (2011) ‘Better You Than I.' Journal of Cognitive Science 23: 659–666. Brunyé, T., Ditman, T., Mahoney, C. R., Augustyn, J. S., and Taylor, H. A. (2009) 'When You and I Share Perspectives.’ Psychological Science 20: 27-32. Ditman, T., Brunyé, T. T., Mahoney, C. R., & Taylor, H. A. (2010) 'Simulating an Enactment Effect.' Cognition 115: 172-8. Ensslin, A. and Bell, A. (2012) ‘Click = Kill’: Textual You in Ludic Digital Fiction.' Storyworlds 4: 49-73. Gavins, J. (2007) Text World Theory: an Introduction. Edinburgh University Press. geniwate & Larsen, D. (2003) The Princess Murderer. http://www.deenalarsen.net/princess/ Herman, D. (2002) Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Phelan, J. (1994). "Self-help for narratee and narrative audience: How 'I' – and 'you'? – read 'How'." Style 28 (3): 350–65. Stockwell. P (2009) Texture: a Cognitive Aesthetics of Reading. Edinburgh University Press. Swann, J. and Allington, D. (2009) 'Reading Groups and the Language of Literary Texts: A Case Study in Social Reading.' Language and Literature 18 (3): 247–64. Whiteley, S. (2011) 'Text World Theory, Real Readers and Emotional Responses to The Remains of the Day.' Language and Literature 20 (1): 23-41.