Some comments

[Chris Crawford <chriscrawford@wave.net>]

First, I can provide one answer to Walt's initial musings about the tendency
for discussions to flare up and then sputter out. It seems that the
trajectory for discussions is to flare up when a strong disagreement arises,
with a number of participants taking completely different tacks on the issue
of contention. At some point, the different tacks become so divergent that
the entire discussion loses coherence and everybody loses interest. Another
contributing factor is the volume of activity. I hesitated to plow through
all the posts of the last few days, as I found some of the material tedious.

A second observation: it would seem that my observations in the
Phrontisterion 2001 invitation are applicable here. I refer to the comments
about the battle between the evolutionists and the revolutionaries. Some of
that same bad blood seems to be showing up here. I still don't understand
it, but it certainly seems that the sharpest comments arise from this
dichotomy of viewpoint. I fear that one of the two contending factions will
"win" this confrontation, inducing the losing side to suspend participation
in this list. I very much hope that this outcome does not ensue.

Third observation: Walt has now been accused of "astounding optimism" and "a
lot of pessimism", proof positive that he must be doing something right.

Lastly, I'd like to respond to Wally that your high estimate of the
difficulty of creating entire storyworlds with many incipient stories. You
are describing the problem in terms of assembling a large number of ideal
plots, something you rightly point out is accomplished rarely in an author's
career. However, you are assuming that interactive storyworlds should
produce plots with the same elegance as hand-tooled stories. I suggest that
the huge artistic power of interactivity compensates for the unavoidable
loss of elegance in the story structure. Chatting with Shakespeare over
lunch would not yield the same elegance of expression that we see in his
carefully crafted plays, but what writer would resent the "uhs" and "ers",
the restarted sentences that would undoubtedly stain such impromptu talk?
The opportunity to interact with such a great storyteller would more than
compensate for the clumsiness of expression.

Chris