出版与作家生涯2010venturebeat.com
作家尼尔·斯蒂芬森发布数字小说《蒙古利亚》
Writer Neal Stephenson unveils his digital novel The Mongoliad
导读
Neal Stephenson 公布数字小说《The Mongoliad》，HN 讨论集中在社交化阅读功能是否喧宾夺主、超文本和徽章等网络噱头是否真能服务叙事，以及作者与粉丝互动的新模式。对写作者而言，这是一次关于形式实验、作者定位和读者关系的案例。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
社交功能若只是徽章、推文式互动，会分散叙事注意力；互动机制应承担情节或角色功能。
- 02
不要把“超文本/嵌入媒体”当成新鲜卖点，形式创新要回答它如何增强阅读体验。
- 03
作者应清楚自己的强项，形式实验也要与个人写作优势匹配，避免被流行词带偏。
- 04
粉丝想与作者互动是真实需求，但需要设计可持续、可盈利且不耗尽作者精力的模式。
HN 评论精选
社交功能不应只是徽章和推文式点缀，而应服务故事的核心任务。
网站还允许读者建个人资料、按站内或应用内活动赚徽章，并与其他读者互动。如果《Snow Crash》或《Diamond Age》里的人物在“赚徽章”或发推，我大概会把书放下。为什么这些“社交”互动不能承担更关键的任务？
euroclydon查看英文原文
There are also social features that allow readers to create their own profiles, earn badges for activity on the site or in the application, and interact with other readers. If characters in Snow Crash or Diamond Age were "earning badges" or tweeting, I'm pretty sure I would have put the book down. Why can't the "social" interactions take on a more mission-critical function?
对超文本等网络噱头的包装保持警惕，别让营销话术代替创作价值。
我喜欢 Stephenson 的小说，但这个项目听起来不吸引人。它有点像一群互联网创业者找上他，说：“嘿，网上有链接和嵌入图片，叫超文本，正流行。能用你的名字吗？你开价多少？”
mkramlich查看英文原文
I love Stephenson's novels but this project does not sound appealing. It comes off a bit like a bunch of Internet entrepreneurs got hold of him and said, "Hey, on the web, we have links and embedded images and stuff. It's called 'Hyper-Text' and is the latest craze. Can we use your name? What's your price?"
作者有擅长的题材；生造词和流行词堆砌会损害可读性。
这是1241年春，西方吓得屁滚尿流（对中世纪穿越者说就是“bewraying its kecks”）。呃，他又写一部《Baroque Cycle》？我刚重读，虽不算糟，但他写科技时最好。《Snow Crash》好，《Interface》好，《Diamond Age》还行，《Baroque Cycle》难啃，《Anathem》是灾难，像块砖，满是生造词和无意义晦涩。我对这个新项目不乐观，尤其他们网站首页堆满流行词。
sbierwagen查看英文原文
It’s spring of 1241, and the West is shitting its pants (that’s “bewraying its kecks” for you medieval time-travelers). Euyagh, he's doing another Baroque Cycle? I just re-read that, and while it's not awful, he really is at his best when he's writing about tech. Snow Crash was good. Interface was good. Diamond Age was okay. The Baroque Cycle was a slog, and Anathem was a blight, a cinderblock of a book full of made-up words and pointless obfuscation. I am not optimistic about this latest venture, especially considering the buzzword-density on the front page of their site.
作者与粉丝互动是真实需求，但缺少可持续模式，值得实验。
Neal Stephenson 早就想过类似的事；事实上他为《Baroque Cycle》建过一个 wiki，但基本没成。像前面评论者一样，我不喜欢推文和徽章，但我觉得 Neal 在试验一个重要的未满足需求：粉丝想和喜欢的作者互动。由于种种原因（耗时间、粉丝无聊重复、作者有时孤僻内向等），作者没有一种（有利可图又愉快的）互动模式。粉丝自建站点（包括同人），但与作者的互动和变现都不存在。所以需要新模式，这是一次寻找新模式的实验。（Chuck Palahniuk 也在用写作工作坊做有趣尝试。）
timdellinger查看英文原文
Neal Stephenson has been thinking about similar things for a while... as a matter of fact he launched a wiki for the Baroque Cycle that sort of went nowhere. Like one of the earlier commentors, I'm not much for anything involving tweets and earning badges, but I think Neal is experimenting around in important unmet need: Fans want to interact with their favorite authors. For a variety of reasons (eats up all your time, fan are boring and repetitive, authors are sometimes solitary introverts, etc.), authors don't have a (profitable, enjoyable) model of how to have these interactions. Fans create their own fan sites (including fanfic), but the interaction with the author and the monetization aren't there. So a new model is called for. This is an experiment toward finding this new model. (Chuck Palahniuk is also experimenting in this direction in interesting ways with writing workshops.)
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