Wake is a first person narrative which tells the story of a girl trying to reach the mountain summit with her close friend, unaware that he and the rest of the world around her is nothing more a dream. As the dream world is often composed more of impressions and emotions rather than specific details, this narrative would benefit greatly from adopting the style of an e-lit. Due to the lonely mountain environment in which the scene takes place, as well as the vague nature of dreams, this e-lit should be minimalist in nature, balancing sparse text, sound, and video to create this effect.

Visually, the effect would be reminiscent of Donna Leishman’s  Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw, in which the scenes remain static until readers explore further through interaction. For Wake, I would reverse the placement of the videos and static images as it is seen in Leishman’s e-lit. Each scene (the climb, the detour, and the waking) would take the form of a looped video with sparse detail and emphasis on environmental scenes. The video will take up the entirety of the window, mimicking true first person view, and will repeat until the reader until the reader clicks on key pieces of scenery. These key items are in fact buttons marking hyperlinks, which would direct the reader to a static, close up image of the object in question before the narrative moves on to the next video.

Text would be sparse compared to the original blog post, including only the literal thoughts of the character rather than describing more action heavy scenes, as  the video sections should sufficiently communicate. Attempting to overlap these mediums would be redundant, and complicate the emotional reception of the narrative. Text would primarily appear accompanying interactive scenes, or at the beginning of a looped video in order to set the scene.

While the text is an important aspect though, music can tell a narrative just as effectively. Thus in my opinion, it is a necessity of e-lit. In the case of this narrative, however, it should be used in moderation. Gentle, simple music should be used in the background of each video (I imagine it being light but bittersweet,) accompanied by occasional ambient background noise. This music, like the videos, will be on constant loop until the reader progresses, and should be non-repetitive.

IT IS CRUCIAL, however, that this music stops during the static images. Such silence represents a slowing of pace in the narrative, encouraging a pause in thought as the reader contemplates the item of interest uninterrupted. The ambient noise, however may continue, and in some cases may even intensify, as it may originate from the key object.

An example of all these factors working together can be seen in the final scene of the narrative. Each quadrant of the video is a button which shakes the “camera” in various directions and zooms in on the target area, putting the reader entirely in control of the scenery. However, this control is in itself an illusion, similar to the endgame of Shadow of the Colossus, in which the player maintains full control of the character without being able to alter his fate through their struggles. The music begins to intensify and become incoherent, mimicking the increasing loss of control. The scene will eventually light to a white background, which serves as one large hyperlink. Upon clicking this, the music will first calm, then cease entirely.  A video will then play in which the white scene transitions to the familiar sight of the bedroom.

The snow crunches lightly, collapsing to powder beneath my feet. It’s a peaceful sound, though a little lonely beneath the moon’s cold glare. But he’s still here. Our tracks wind together down the mountain path behind us, and our breath mists the air in front. I close my eyes, taking comfort in the muffled fall of his footsteps. He’s still here.

A ledge rears up before us, and he’s at the top before I’ve even gauged its height. Wordlessly he offers me a hand, and wordlessly I take it. And in wordless, familiar silence we continue up the slope to where the summit waits. We take our time, content in each other’s company. There’s no need to hurry when you’re already where you want to be.

But where the path curves around an outcropping of stone, another path splits off, rising up and out of view. As we draw level with it, I lurch to a halt as though physically held. I close my eyes to listen, and I feel it in my chest: a deep, aching tug like a half remembered song. Alluring. Irresistible. I take an involuntary step before turning back, remembering myself.

He’s watching me, head tilted as if to better hear my thoughts. But for once we are divided. He doesn’t turn from the path, and I know then that he can’t feel the pull. I take another step up the slope and look back helplessly. I can’t remember a time when I looked behind me and saw only my own footprints. I don’t know how to explain: this path is mine–and mine alone.

He holds my gaze for a long moment and then smiles, though his eyes are lined with worry.

“It’s alright. I’ll wait here for you.”

“I’ll be right back,” I promise. And then I’m bounding away up the slope.

Up where the path ends, I find a shallow cleft in the rocks, its interior fired gold by countless candles. I pinch at one of them curiously, wondering how they’ve withstood the wind. On reflex I jerk my hand away, a yelp ready on the tip of my tongue, but the flame is no warmer than the mountain air. I examine it warily, brow furrowed. I wish he had come, now. He would know what to make of this. But the cave seems harmless enough. The candlelight flickers off the walls in a friendly, winking way, reflecting off facets in the stone.

But is it stone? It seems too bright, glaring like the moon, but with fire’s warmth. I turn towards the cave mouth as the light becomes painful, but there is no exit anymore—only the relentless, surrounding glow. And now the rocks are ringing, louder and louder as the light beats at my eyelids. The ground drops gently from under my feet, as if I’m falling, or floating away.  I scrabble for a handhold, crying out for help, but there’s nothing around me anymore. Too far, I realize, heart sinking as I rise. It’s too far. He can’t hear me.

His name, I think suddenly. Why can’t I remember his name? I can no more grab hold of it than I can the floor of the cave. The light is so bright now; it splits through the shelter of my eyelids and forces them wide. The light congeals into blazing glass, and the ringing hardens into the harsh blast of an alarm. “I can’t go,” I whisper with my last conscious thought. “He’s waiting for me.”

And then with a gasp, I wake.

A self diagnosed technophobe, pathological truth-teller, and a creature of pure, unrepentant evil, Monica is an English major and plot enthusiast who was taken in from an early age by a wild pack of computer science majors and trained in the art of virtual war. While she has embraced their gamer culture and become fluent in their geekspeak, she remains a permanent duck out of water technologically, and takes great comfort in using stories and writing to ease herself into the digital medium. When she is not warring with computer science majors or plotting world domination, she attempts to write novels and draws webcomics in her spare time.

Monica is a shrewd but somewhat lazy plot predator, who is built for ambush and short bursts of speed rather than research sessions requiring stamina. As a result, she tends to lurk on Rotten Tomatoes and TV Tropes in order to supplement her own observations as she hunts down the elusive components that make stories effective at evoking emotion. Her latest interest is studying the horror genre. She keeps a diary documenting effective techniques, and is always on the lookout for more. She practically salivated upon noticing this class.