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Boy meets girl, they fall in love, ride the emotional roller-coaster and finally vow to live together happily ever after. This is the standard formula used in most romance novels. You can vary the story slightly by setting the romance in the Regency period and dressing up your hero and heroine in ruffles and feathers. But does your creation seem like a pale imitation of a title by Barbara Cartland or Georgette Heyer?

Technology has ushered in the millenium of the cyber-romance. In this wired world, there are possibilities that have not been exploited in romantic fiction so far. Today, it is more than likely that the main characters in the love story, living in different corners of the globe, will bump into each other in chat rooms, woo each other through email and finally tie the knot in cyberspace. So, if you are stuck for ideas, just crawl around the internet and feel the inspiration strike you.

Interactive storytelling

Popular authors like Stephen King have opted to publish their latest titles on the internet. As a writer, the internet offers you fresh ideas as well as incredible new ways to write the story. The electronic publishing industry has great demand for fiction writers who are effective at interactive storytelling. Telling a story interactively means giving the user options to control the flow of the narrative. As a writer, your genius lies in writing different versions of the same story from multiple points of view, allowing users to choose from a variety of character attributes and story endings.

Virtual Reality is an interactive story that can be read in ten different ways. Choose to read it as a romance or a mystery. Read it from the hero's or the heroine's point of view. Change the occupations of the hero and the heroine. As you can see, the list of options is not exhaustive.

What would you like to read in Virtual Reality? Move your mouse over the buttons below to view the "ingredients" in each version of the story. Click on any of the buttons to view a version of Virtual Reality.

Click on the mailbox icon to email me your version of Virtual Reality. If this does not appeal to you, why not try making your current writing project interactive? You will find that interactive storytelling will stretch the limits of your creativity (and your patience!).

Copyright 2000, Shanti Bhaskaran