Writing precariously: branching narratives, command, and fictive agency in risk society

Abstract

Contemporary risk society has caused many creative practitioners to question the role, effect, and potential of their practice. In seeking to find a means by which creative writing can do something in the real world, this article examines the use of directive speech acts–such as commands, requests, and invitations–in print and digital branching narratives and choose-your-own-adventure texts. I focus on The Throne of Zeus, Depression Quest, and Queers in Love at the End of the World, investigating both standard directives and what I classify as ‘latent’ directives: commands ‘hidden’ within the text, taking forms such as styled hyperlinks and typographical notes and citations. Deploying Aarseth’s definitions of ergodic literature, DelConte’s concept of partially-coincident narration, and Juul’s ludological theory of the half-real, I find that the directives featured in these texts step beyond their fictional context, operating as true speech acts within our stretched-out present and collapsed temporal horizon, thereby strengthening the texts’ overall illocutionary goal. These texts speak to and of the precarity of our present time, embodying–and allowing a reader to embody–lived experiences of extended nows, and allowing us to take control in acting towards a present-to-be.