Teaching digital fiction: integrating experimental writing and current technologies

Abstract

Today’s creative writers are immersed in a multiplicative, multimodal—digital—universe. It requires “multiliteracies”, all in a constantly and rapidly evolving technological environment, which are not yet fundamentally integrated into the basic literacy skills entrenched in school learning. How can creative writing instructors in higher education best prepare their students for the real-world contexts of their creative practice? One approach is to integrate the creative writing workshop with a focus on digital and interactive design. This paper outlines a module incorporating multiple literacies into a creative writing course, Playable Fiction, noting the affordances, limitations, and benefits of teaching workshops for writing digital fiction (“born-digital” fiction, composed for and read on digital devices). The researcher took an ethnographical approach to the question, designing a module to encourage creative writing students to experiment with digital fiction, and observing the effects on the students’ attitudes and their coursework. Included is a discussion of the benefits to students of developing multiliteracies and considerations for teaching, including issues of technical know-how and the lack of infrastructural support. Finally, the paper describes the model class taught to second-year and third-year undergraduates in the ‘Games Design and Professional Writing' programs at Bangor University, in the UK, including marking recommendations and reading list advice.