Reading
Essays on the act of reading a story that is written as you go: pacing, attention, and what makes a scene worth rereading.
Post-Apocalyptic Interactive Fiction and Scarcity
Post-apocalyptic interactive fiction is really about scarcity and memory rather than combat. How to spot one that holds up, and how to read it well.
Pacing in Interactive Fiction Is Half Yours
Pacing in interactive fiction is set twice, once by the scene and once by the move you write. How each form divides it, and how to fix a story that drags.
Choosing an AI Narrator for the Story You Want
Choosing an AI narrator is a question about prose, not price. What the choice changes, what it never changes, and how to decide before the first scene.
Continuing an AI Story Later After a Week Away
Continuing an AI story later works when you leave a next intention behind. The four things you need on return, and what to read before the prose.
Is interactive fiction a game or a book? Both
Is interactive fiction a game or a book? Both, and the question that helps you more is what a work asks you to supply: competence, or attention.
Secrets in Interactive Fiction Are Kept, Not Hidden
Secrets in interactive fiction need a keeper, not a hiding place. The three records a story must hold for a reveal to land, and how fakes give themselves away.
Offline Interactive Fiction and Where Prose Lives
Offline interactive fiction works when every sentence is already in the file. A live AI narrator writes each scene on request, so it needs a connection.
Interactive Fiction Accessibility and What Breaks It
Interactive fiction accessibility starts ahead of every other kind of game, because prose needs no label. What breaks it is what apps add around the text.
Interactive Fiction Glossary, One Example Each
An interactive fiction glossary grouped by what you need: how you act, how a story was built, and what an AI narrator keeps between scenes.
Do Choices Matter in AI Stories, and How to Tell
Do choices matter in AI stories? Only as far as something records them. Three tests you can run mid-story to see whether your move was written down.
Re-reading an AI Story That Exists Only Once
Re-reading an AI story means opening a saved record, not replaying a game: the same world and the same opening never produce the same text twice.
AI Story Illustrations Are Better One per Story
AI story illustrations compete with the room you already built from the prose. One picture, drawn late from a scene you reached, does more than a gallery.
Asking the AI Narrator a Question Is Not a Move
Asking the AI narrator a question is a different register from writing a move. Where the line falls, and how to ask without writing it into the story.
How Long Is an AI Story, Measured in Scenes
How long is an AI story? Count scenes, not words. A story runs as long as it has promises left open, and ends the evening you close the last one.
Every Free AI Story App Is Paid For Somehow
A free AI story app is free to you, never to run. Five arrangements the word hides, what each one costs, and the questions to ask before you install.
Correcting an AI Narrator Means Naming the Error
Correcting an AI narrator works only once you name the error. Three kinds of wrong, and the one repair that each of them actually answers to.
Text Adventure vs Interactive Fiction, Two Names
Text adventure vs interactive fiction is one medium under two names, one naming the puzzle and one naming the story. What each label predicts.
AI Roleplay vs Interactive Fiction and the Ending
AI roleplay vs interactive fiction is a question of shape: one keeps a character available forever, the other moves a story toward a last scene.
Horror Interactive Fiction Works by Withholding
Horror interactive fiction frightens by leaving things out. What the page states, what you supply, and how to tell a story that keeps its dread.
Interactive Fiction on Your Phone Fits One Hand
Interactive fiction on your phone depends on line length, type size and how the app survives interruption. What a reading screen has to get right.
What Makes a Good AI Narrator, Tested in One Scene
What makes a good AI narrator is not the model name. Four things to check in a single opening scene: specific detail, restraint, consequence, and address.
Reading Interactive Fiction Slowly, One Scene a Day
Reading interactive fiction slowly, a scene a day, is a practice rather than a limit. The gap between sittings is where the story sets.
AI Story App Privacy and What Leaves Your Phone
A checklist for AI story app privacy: when your text leaves the phone, what is kept afterward, and whether deletion reaches the record.
How AI Stories End, and Why Endless Isn't a Story
How AI stories end is a design problem, not a limit. What a narrator needs before it can close, and why an endless story reads as drift instead.
Interactive Fiction vs Visual Novel, Who Draws It
Interactive fiction vs visual novel is not text against art. It comes down to who supplies the image, and what each form has to pay for a branch.
AI Story Content Rating Belongs on the Cover
An AI story content rating should work like a book's age label: declared before you begin, not enforced by a filter that stops you mid-sentence.
Export AI Story as Text and Keep What You Read
How to export AI story as text, why plain text outlasts the app that wrote it, and what account deletion should remove when you decide to leave.
Talk to Characters in AI Stories, Not to the AI
You talk to characters in AI stories by writing the line itself, in quotes and in voice. What that changes, and the chat habits that flatten a scene.
AI Story App for Android and What to Check First
Before you install an AI story app for Android, four things on the Play listing and the first screen tell you whether it will hold a story.
AI Story Credits Explained, From Token to Scene
AI story credits explained: what one credit really buys, why a scene costs more later in a story, and how to read without watching a counter.
AI Dungeon Alternatives for Readers, Not Players
A sorted guide to AI Dungeon alternatives: which AI story apps optimise for roleplay chat, which for gamified RPG systems, and which for reading prose.
How to Play AI Text Adventures and Write Your Move
How to play AI text adventures well comes down to one habit: write your move as a sentence with a single intention, in your character's voice.
Interactive Fiction Apps for Adults Who Read
Most interactive fiction apps for adults are rated adult, not written for adults. Here is how to tell prose-first reading from gem-gated serials.
Why a Text Adventure Without Stats Reads Better
A text adventure without stats drops the dice, the XP bar and the inventory grid, so nothing on the page competes with the prose. Here is what replaces them.
What Is AI Interactive Fiction? A Reader's Guide
AI interactive fiction is a story where the prose is written live in response to what you do. Here is the lineage from Zork to AI narrators, and what changes.