Fiction takes an interesting new twist with 'moooks' from mifiction

[NeonDrum]

May 5 2010 - Interactive fiction books are now available on mobile phones as new technology transforms the traditional novel into a contemporary format. Mobile books or ‘moooks’ are designed for instant viewing across a wide range of mobile networks worldwide, with first service availability in the UK.

This new interactive storytelling concept is the brainchild of mifiction; a Surrey based company with a mission to introduce interactive books, ‘moooks’ across the mobile platform. The interactive nature of these ‘moooks’ means that the reader has the power to decide what happens in the story. At a number of points within each chapter, the reader has a choice of options to determine the outcome, giving an immense number of possible story variations.

According to the National Literacy Trust, less than half of children aged nine to 14 read fiction more than once a month. mifiction sees this new development of ‘moooks’ as an innovative way to entice a younger audience to the world of fiction.

Ten brand new ‘moooks’ have been written especially for the launch of the mifiction product, including the recent mifiction competition winner, Will Dunn’s interactive novel, ‘Dead Flowers’. Will Dunn, freelance journalist and writer, tells us why interactive fiction is important for the future of storytelling:

"It's exciting to be one of the first authors to work with mifiction, and a great opportunity to explore new ways of writing. They have created an inventive way of telling stories that I hope will ignite a passion for reading in a new audience."
With more interactive fiction books in the pipeline, mifiction is keen to receive submissions from budding new authors, who can obtain further information by emailing contact[at]mifiction[dot]co.uk.

To find out more about mifiction go to http://www.mifiction.co.uk, where an example chapter of “The Three Tears” is available for anyone to try for free; simply enter your email address, create a password and explore interactive fiction for yourself.

mifiction’s interactive fiction books are available via mobiles throughout the UK and these moooks are also globally accessible on the Internet.

###

Editors Notes:
• mifiction is an imprint of Mobile Interactive Horizons Ltd, a company registered in the UK and founded to publish interactive text for standard mobile devices such as phones and PDAs.
• Mobile Interactive Horizons Ltd. is a joint venture lead by iBundle - an innovation hub for software and web companies providing innovative new tools and services for their target markets.
• Will Dunn is a freelance journalist. He grew up in Devon before moving to London, where he studied philosophy at King’s College, wrote TV listings and worked for magazines. He now lives in Barcelona.

Press contact details:
Jenifer Davis,
jdavis[at]thebluedoor[dot]com
or Abigail Harrison, a
harrison[at]thebluedoor[dot]com
Telephone: 01252 899 969

To find out more about mifiction, visit the website: http://www.mifiction.co.uk

~ Ends ~

Distributed on behalf of thebluedoor by NeonDrum (http://www.neondrum.com)
Nicky Denovan
Tel: +44 7747 017654
nicky[at]neondrum[dot]com

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by NeonDrum

May 5 2010 - Interactive fiction books are now available on mobile phones as new technology transforms the traditional novel into a contemporary format. Mobile books or ‘moooks’ are designed for instant viewing across a wide range of mobile networks worldwide, with first service availability in the UK.

This new interactive storytelling concept is the brainchild of mifiction; a Surrey based company with a mission to introduce interactive books, ‘moooks’ across the mobile platform. The interactive nature of these ‘moooks’ means that the reader has the power to decide what happens in the story. At a number of points within each chapter, the reader has a choice of options to determine the outcome, giving an immense number of possible story variations.

According to the National Literacy Trust, less than half of children aged nine to 14 read fiction more than once a month. mifiction sees this new development of ‘moooks’ as an innovative way to entice a younger audience to the world of fiction.

Ten brand new ‘moooks’ have been written especially for the launch of the mifiction product, including the recent mifiction competition winner, Will Dunn’s interactive novel, ‘Dead Flowers’. Will Dunn, freelance journalist and writer, tells us why interactive fiction is important for the future of storytelling:

"It's exciting to be one of the first authors to work with mifiction, and a great opportunity to explore new ways of writing. They have created an inventive way of telling stories that I hope will ignite a passion for reading in a new audience."
With more interactive fiction books in the pipeline, mifiction is keen to receive submissions from budding new authors, who can obtain further information by emailing contact[at]mifiction[dot]co.uk.

To find out more about mifiction go to http://www.mifiction.co.uk, where an example chapter of “The Three Tears” is available for anyone to try for free; simply enter your email address, create a password and explore interactive fiction for yourself.

mifiction’s interactive fiction books are available via mobiles throughout the UK and these moooks are also globally accessible on the Internet.

###

Editors Notes:
• mifiction is an imprint of Mobile Interactive Horizons Ltd, a company registered in the UK and founded to publish interactive text for standard mobile devices such as phones and PDAs.
• Mobile Interactive Horizons Ltd. is a joint venture lead by iBundle - an innovation hub for software and web companies providing innovative new tools and services for their target markets.
• Will Dunn is a freelance journalist. He grew up in Devon before moving to London, where he studied philosophy at King’s College, wrote TV listings and worked for magazines. He now lives in Barcelona.

Press contact details:
Jenifer Davis,
jdavis[at]thebluedoor[dot]com
or Abigail Harrison, a
harrison[at]thebluedoor[dot]com
Telephone: 01252 899 969

To find out more about mifiction, visit the website: http://www.mifiction.co.uk

~ Ends ~

Distributed on behalf of thebluedoor by NeonDrum (http://www.neondrum.com)
Nicky Denovan
Tel: +44 7747 017654
nicky[at]neondrum[dot]com

So, let me get this straight. I don't buy a book that tells the tale to me. No, *I* buy a 'mook' that forces me to abandon my entertainment and thrusts me into the *WORK* of creating my own story.

Yep. I guess this is the next step towards nudging me into creating my own works rather than buying someone else's.

Dude. They *tried* this back in the day - in print. It sucked then, it'll suck now.

Derek

[Marcy]

This has been around since my long-ago youth -- the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Of course I had to do the work of turning to the proper page, but I survived the effort. I never really liked the books, because the stories were necessarily not as rich as a real book, having to be written along many different threads.

-Marcy

[Worldwalker]

The "choose your own adventure" books worked to the extent that they did because their target audience was players of fantasy games (generally male), and the books were essentially single-player RPG adventures in book form (some even required dice). The successful ones stuck to that format.

The unsuccessful ones tried to get more literary (there was a series based off popular fantasy/SF -- I think I even have a Pern-themed one stored away somewhere). Then there was TSR's rather bizarre attempt at using the format for romance novels. Yeah, they worked as well as you might expect for a romance novel in choose-your-adventure format written by a game company. The last I saw of them, back in the day, my then-local Waldenbooks had a full display of them with maybe one or two of each missing, and a big sign "10 cents each" stuck to it.

The reason the books like the "Fighting Fantasy" and "Lone Wolf" series sold, while the "Heart Quest" ones didn't, is that they worked moderately well as games. Frankly, even the best of them sucked royally as books. That opinion, by the way, is from my days as a young gamer, their exact target audience; I doubt if I could even make it through one today. The game aspects didn't enhance the book aspects; instead, the book aspects were to be endured as part of the game mechanics. I've always been a bookaholic; I would (and still will) read pretty much anything with words on it. But I never really saw ones I read as books; they were games with explanatory text. (and no, I never actually owned one of the Heart Quest ones; I have some standards!)

[gamegeek]Am I weird because I think of "moooks" as something Tauren would read?[/gamegeek]

Aside from book-shaped games, I think it's almost inevitable that a multi-path book in any format is going to have to struggle just to be mediocre, and in all but the most skilled of hands is probably going to utterly suck. It's hard enough to get a single plot thread working optimally. Trying to write what is essentially multiple versions of the same story, all but one of which, by definition, are following sub-optimal versions of the plot, would tax the best of authors. And the best of authors have other things to write than cell-phone equivalents of "choose your own adventure" books.

Besides, I never trust a publisher whose press release is filled with punctuation errors.

[mr ploppy]

Harry Harrison did one in the mid 80s, that was okayish as a book but pretty limited as a game. There was also a few Sonic Hedgehog and Super Mario game books in the 90s.