Unconventional Storytelling: Embracing the Ergodic

Sometimes, the most memorable pieces of fiction are the ones that break convention. This can be said of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, which follows a manuscript about a documentary that doesn’t exist. It weaves the manuscript itself with the story of the person who found it after the original writer’s death, told through lengthy footnotes. At some points, Danielewski arranges the text in ways that require the reader to physically rotate the book in order to read it. Additionally, certain words appear in different colored text. This unconventional nature is a large factor in House of Leaves’s popularity.

But House of Leaves is not the only story of its kind. It belongs to the genre of ergodic literature, populated by strange and memorable stories.

What Is Ergodic Literature?

Espen Aarseth coined the term “ergodic literature” in Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. According to Aarseth, it’s a genre where “nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text.” Jesús Vila gave a shorter definition, naming interactiveness as the core element of ergodic literature.

To give an example of these elements in action, let’s go back to House of Leaves. It requires greater than usual effort to read both because of the text orientation and the need to jump back and forth between text and footnotes. The latter also gives it an interactive element— the reader has to choose how to traverse the text, where to make that text-footnote jump.

Examples of Ergodic Literature

There’s one example of ergodic literature that you might be very familiar with, and that’s the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Its effort requirement and interactiveness lies in putting the direction of the story in the reader’s hands, making the reader an active participant rather than an observer.

A comic book from my own childhood with a similar concept that left an impression on me is Meanwhile by Jason Shiga. It has choices upon choices, ranging from picking a flavor of ice cream to determining the fate of humanity. I remember reading it over and over in an attempt to get every possible ending. This is another one of the draws of ergodic literature. It prompts readers to go over the text again, to search for hidden details.

But ergodic literature is not only found in physical media. After all, the term arose from the study of cybertext and hypertext fiction, types of electronic literature. Online formats allow for new and experimental forms of storytelling capable of reaching broad audiences. An infamous example is Homestuck, a webcomic inspired by text adventure games. In fact, in the beginning of Homestuck, writer and artist Andrew Hussie took reader suggestions to advance the story, presented in the form of commands like in text adventures. This stopped as Hussie began taking the story in a more focused direction, though the format of commands stayed as a way of transitioning from one page to the next. It was a multimedia work, too, incorporating text, visuals, animations, and even playable video game segments. The webcomic was known for its large and passionate fanbase, and I would argue that part of how it rose to popularity was its uniqueness and interactivity. Whether you love it, hate it, or don’t know what it is, there’s nothing quite like Homestuck.

The work of fiction I’ve seen that got closest to Homestuck in terms of medium is 17776 by Jon Bois. Like Homestuck, it’s a piece of digital multimedia storytelling, with graphic, textual, and video elements. At the beginning, the reader has to scroll through a long series of calendar graphics, illustrating the passage of time as two of its characters attempt to communicate. Past that, it often used satellite imagery and 3D models to create visuals that accompanied the text.

Aarseth also includes games in his examples of ergodic literature, such as multi-user dungeons, online role-playing games that serve as the predecessor to modern MMO video games. With this in mind, there’s an argument for counting story-based video games as ergodic literature. Many video games incorporate elements like that of Choose Your Own Adventure, with player input guiding the story. One example that comes to mind is Night in the Woods. While the climax of the game is the same in all routes, the path taken there depends on the choices the player makes in the role of protagonist Mae Borowski. Multiple playthroughs allow the player to learn more about the characters and Mae’s relationship with them.

So, You Want to Write Ergodic Literature?

Writing an ergodic story is daunting. You’ll likely have to keep track of several moving, interlocking parts. It’s difficult to even give advice with how many ways there are to make a story ergodic. However, for a place to start, consider format. Start with the most basic categories, physical or electronic, and keep narrowing it down until you have something specific. It’s also important to consider what this format would require. Does it need visuals? If it’s electronic, would you need to code a website or game? Can you do these things yourself, or would you need a collaborator?

When thinking about format, you also have to think about why that format. Unconventional formatting will pay off better if it complements the story contained within it. For example, the documentary in House of Leaves concerns a house with odd, labyrinthine dimensions. The mazelike structure of the story mimics that of the house. Ask yourself how your structure fits with and enhances your story.

As interactiveness is one of the core elements of ergodic literature, you have to think about the reader and their experience more than you would in a regular story. Make the reader a part of the story. There’s multiple ways to do this, as demonstrated in the examples of ergodic literature. You can directly involve them by incorporating their choices into the story, or you can offer choices in the act of reading itself by creating a puzzle for the reader to put together.

In terms of timeline, ergodic literature is especially suited to nonlinear narratives. Homestuck involves multiple timelines across multiple different universes. You don’t have to get that complicated, but if you’re interested in writing a story that’s told out of order, or that involves multiple storylines at once, this is a good place to do just that.

No matter what you choose, remember that ergodic literature is about stretching the limits of how fiction can be conveyed. It’s an opportunity for you to get creative. Here’s two final questions to ask yourself: what’s a way of telling a story that you’ve never seen before?

And how can you make it a reality?

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About the author:

Benjamin Fishman (he/they) is a senior at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he studies English with a minor in Anthropology. While he mainly specializes in fiction and poetry, he will write in just about any genre that calls to him. Outside of writing, they enjoy tabletop gaming, going down rabbit holes, and daydreaming.