failure and determination

[Chris Crawford <christophercrawford@direcway.com>]

At some point in the past I was on the idrama list but then I changed my email address and forgot to update it on the idrama list, so I didn't see any of this until I saw a mention of it at grandtextauto. Rather than respond to any specific comments, I'd like to offer a meditation on the issue of "dem ole interactive storytelling blues".

I've been working on this for 13 years now. I don't mean that I first thought about it 13 years ago and have dabbled at it on and off ever since. No, I set interactive storytelling as my goal in life 13 years ago and I have dedicated myself full time to that problem ever since. Yes, there have been distractions, such as writing books and teaching some courses, but the focal point of my efforts has always been interactive storytelling.

You would think that, after 13 years with no grand results to show off, I might be discouraged. Certainly lots of other people are getting discouraged after a mere five years (!) at it. Yes, I get discouraged. I went at the problem full bore for about five years and then I too ran out of creative steam. It seemed as if I was beating my head against a wall. Back then, in the mid-90s, nobody seemed to be interested in the subject. You try living for 13 years without any primary source of income. (Actually, there was some funding, briefly.) I'm lucky my wife has been patient with my quixotic pursuit of this goal, but I can also say that, despite her patience, it grates at her and has eroded the strength of our marriage. I work and I work and the days roll by, the weeks roll by, the months roll by, and nothing seems to change. Other people with half my talent are pulling in big bucks for crappy work, or gaining public recognition, or in other ways enjoying the benefits of their labors, and I still I labor on, building more and more technology and still nobody is interested. I wrote an entire book on interactive storytelling, hoping that it would trigger some interest, some discussion, something -- but nothing ever came of it. It would seem that nobody read it. 

Yes, the years of failure have sapped my energy. I don't have the energy to work 10 hours a day on it as I once did. I work for a few hours, then my mind wanders. It takes enormous discipline to sit down and force myself to continue working on a project that the entire world -- my wife included -- thinks an utter waste of time. I take no creative joy in my work, nor any optimism that it will ever produce the results I hope for. I work now out of towering stubborness, and out of desperate fear of the thought that my life's work -- and therefore my life itself -- has been an utter waste of time. I'm like a shipwrecked sailor in a rubber dinghy thousands of miles from any possible rescue, stubbornly paddling forward because there's nothing else to do but die.

I remain absolutely certain that interactive storytelling can and will be achieved. Many of the arguments I witness on the topic no longer excite my attention, as I have long answered most of those questions to my own satisfaction. First among these is the "plot versus interactivity" debate. I solved that problem 15 years ago, published the solution, and nobody seems to have noticed it. Fine. They'll figure it out someday. There remain serious problems to be solved, but I no longer consider any of them to be killer problems. They are what physicists like to call "engineering details". 

So when others say that they are losing interest or getting discouraged, I can surely second that emotion. This is not an easy problem. It will not be solved by a few brilliant strokes of genius. It demands the solution of a number of gigantic problems. I believe that I have found one approach that solves those problems. I can see others making progress on very different strategies that seem promising. This is going to be a long, hard struggle. But make no mistake, someday we will plant our flag at the top of this mountain. If my role is to be the dead body holding down the accordion wire far below the summit, so be it.