Contemporary Text Experiences and Storytelling

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This article, stemming from research in contemporary book studies and new media studies aims at showing the recent evolutions of storytelling practices in contemporary literature, more specifically in their relationship with electronic forms of literature. Starting with the recent resurgence of the “death of the novel” trope, we attempt to map out the way elements of contemporary literature have in part evaded the perceived opposition between print and electronic literature, to build a new form of storytelling which is characteristic in its construction of a specific way of reading. Since it has been established that reading practices are influenced by the evolution of reading devices, storytelling is in turn informed by these evolutions. Electronic literature as such has been studied extensively, as well as its direct aesthetic influence on avant-garde works like Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. This influence has reached different audiences and may be connected to other productions referred to under Henry Jenkins’ umbrella term “transmedia storytelling.” Then, forms of contemporary storytelling have attempted to regain the reader’s fractured attention, notably through the manipulation of experience and immersion in time and space –geolocalised narratives, stories told through social media, or lived stories translated into a museum. Storytelling is thus informed not only by its source, but by a great variety of variables like touch, smell, or spatial experience, to regain a sense of connectedness in the act of telling stories. In seeing storytelling as a synchronic experience, we then focus on works both targeting a specific audience used to experimental texts or productions, or niche audiences expecting genre fiction.