Avoiding Gimmicks

A couple days ago, I went with my mom to see the movie Up. At the ticket booth, I am told that there are no more tickets for the 3-D version. I didn't even know there was a 3-D version of the movie, so I really didn't care. I went and watched the movie and while leaving the theater, I see the poster for Up in 3-D. This sparked a conversation of how much we really didn't care about seeing the movie in 3-D. "We get it, stuff is going to fly at us."

This leads to a more important conversation: How do you employ new techniques without making them look like gimmicks?

Frankly, the only answer I have found is that you have to make the technologies integral, but not focused on. In terms of purely textual writing, the latest technology is hypertext (even though it is still quite old). The simple version is that hypertext fiction contains a large pool of information and the reader clicks on a variety of links to move from one place to another.

I think that hypertext fiction makes for a cleaner version of choose your own adventure than the paper kind, but it still feels gimmicky. If you want to understand writing that makes good use of hypertext, you should look to blogs. A good blog entry has a completely self-contained point. to it. The links are added for background or reference. When you write a reply or a review, you show anybody who doesn't know what your source material is. If people already know what you're talking about, they don't need them. If they are lost, you have given those people some help.

Hypertext is so weaved into online culture that we don't even think of it as revolutionary or any different from normal writing. That is a proper implementation of new technology. In terms of 3-D movies, a proper implementation would be one where the extra dimension allows you to show angles and sizes that could not be shown as well on a screen. Make it truly add to the telling of the story, but not the main point of the story. (The exact opposite of My Bloody Valentine 3-D)

The reason I bring this up is the world of comics. I read an article today about the potential of webcomics. One of the things it mentioned was that the experiments that have been done in making comics that use techniques that paper cannot duplicate have not fared very well. They have largely come off as gimmicky or as not being that different from paper. I would have to agree.

Now, the author says that this is natural. We have to experiment to learn and experimentation requires a lot of failure. I agree with this, too. But the most important thing that I need to add is that blind experimentation is rarely effective. Anybody who wants to play with a new technology should first look at previous experiments and learn what has and hasn't worked. Then from all that data, figure out what qualities the things that work have that are lacking in the things that fail.

If you want to use new technology and avoid looking like a gimmick, then don't treat it like a gimmick. Use it as a tool, like any other technology. Comics are more than just illustrating a story. The pictures and the words work together to accomplish more than either one does alone. Treat whatever you would do with the internet or flash in the same way. Make it useful, but not the focus.