Which is what she will be doing on a panel discussion for the upcoming FutureFest event, taking in place in London this weekend. The event will be exploring all things "land of tomorrow" both near and distant, from art to learning, culture, technology, and play.Pratchett will join game writer Rob Morgan and journalist and author Laurie Penny for a debate about the future of storytelling, reflecting on how technologies like AR and VR, hardware like the HoloLens and Oculus Rift, might drive and inform it. They'll also be pondering how our stories change us. The novel, for instance, is known for giving writers the chance to dive into a character's headspace, dedicating entire chapters to their flowing consciousness—and has been credited with making us more compassionate. It's early days to draw concrete conclusions on how video games affect us (although people love to do so) and we can only guess at how more immersive tech will influence us, but it's an interesting debate to have.Of course, there's plenty of dystopian or utopian visions of where tech like AR and VR might drive us, if you want to be persuaded. No doubt the reality, as ever, will be shades of complex grey rather than crisply defined black and white.Predicting the future is always impossible anyway—nobody predicted Pokémon Go's insane-levels of popularity or even how the smartphone itself would come to encompass and dominate the early-21st century lives of homo sapiens. But the future of storytelling is always an interesting conversation to have. To that end, Pratchett answered some questions for us over email about storytelling, technology, and her own relationship to telling tales.
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Rhianna PratchettThe Creators Project: What, for you, is the most exciting recent technological development in terms of storytelling? Rhianna Pratchett: The way the industry is embracing and developing motion-capture has had the most impact on my role as a writer. From a narrative perspective, it means you’re writing characters to be fully performed by actors, rather than just voiced and animated later on. When I worked on Heavenly Sword (which came on in 2008) we captured facial and body mocap for the first time. We also utilized the talents of Andy Serkis, as both an actor and our dramatic director. Since then mocap has become a little more common place, although it’s certainly not industry wide. The industry is also developing new ways of using it, such as the recently announced Senua Studio which allows real-time performances to drive virtual characters.What do you feel tech like AR and VR can bring to storytelling that’s unique to these mediums? Like the novel could show us people’s intricate monologues or cinema could juxtapose disparate images to invoke new meanings.It’s a new way of being immersed in a place or a world. Environmental storytelling is used in all entertainment media. In film and TV, it’s relatively fleeting. Likewise, it may be integral to the theatrical experience, but audiences can’t directly interact with it. With games, not only is real-estate huge for environmental storytelling, but your players have all the time they want to poke around in it. With VR that sense of immersion in a place will bring environmental storytelling to the next level.
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There are both dystopian and utopian interpretations of immersive technology. Is there a justified concern that it’s going to become a new “opiate for the masses” or abused by corporations? We’re only just getting our heads around the tech and issues like preventing motion sickness, so it feels like we’re pretty far away from a Ready Player One scenario. However, it definitely has potential to change the nature of something like the porn industry, for example.
Mirror's Edge PS3 ScreenshotWhat’s your reaction to Pokémon Go? Do you see it as a breakthrough moment for AR gaming?I do. Just the sheer uptake and integration it got was amazing. It was a surprise to everyone, even the developers. However, it exposed a weakness in support and sustainability which will need to be rectified by any company looking to venture into that space in the future. It’s a trailblazer, for sure, but what comes rolling down that trail next is going to be ultimately more interesting.Do you think more immersive experiences are allowing for more experimental and adventurous narratives?Yes. Every wave of new technology brings with it new ways of telling stories. Although I suspect it will take awhile before we can really make the most of them as storytellers. Narrative techniques for the games industry alone are still developing and changing all the time, and we’re playing catch-up to everyone else.
How do you feel these technologies change our experiences of stories and narratives?If we’re able to bring more stories to more people in ways that can entertain, educate and move them then that’s all good. However, the cost of both new tech—and the tech needed to develop for that new tech—may prohibit some people (with important and engaging stories to tell) from being able to develop or use it.Immersive theatre, VR, cinema, and AR are all (or are becoming) popular ways of storytelling. Is there a future where they converge into one new hybrid form?I can’t see them becoming a true hybrid as they are all doing slightly different things. I’d also say that they’re still a long way off becoming popular too. After all, it’s only in the last decade that videogames have fully been acknowledged as a mainstream entertainment form. However, they’ll always be some cross-pollination between the entertainment forms. Theater, for example, is definitely starting to borrow from the interactive gaming, while there’s a lot that games can learn from creating more theatrical experiences.
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