Author Anna McPartlin is doing something very interesting with her website for the book “So What If I’m Broken.” She’s actually allowing readers to interact with her characters in cyberworld. The feature is being promoted as “A book that talks back.”
Anna says, “What is really exciting is that readers might actually change the story through their own interactions with the character. So while it will return to the universe of the book by the end, it can go for a user led meander through the public’s contributions.”
You can read more about what she’s doing here.
This is an interesting idea. I love that she’s really bringing her characters to live in the online world and allowing readers to follow their blogs and twitter posts, visit their social networking profiles, etc…
But is allowing the readers to actually change the plot going a little too far? Does that allow people to purposely sabotage the story? I would guess Anna and her crew have ensured that sort of thing can’t happen. But it’s something we should all keep our eye on. Because this could be a great idea … or a great disaster.
What do you think?