"Hello, World!" - Plotopolis beta launch

In which we launch a new type of literary venture

"Hello World!" is the first computer program you write when begin learning a new programming language. When you run the tiny program you've created, all it does is spit out those two words. It's always thrilling. You've built something! You've taken the confusing and arcane and bent it to your will.

It seems appropriate, then, here on the verge of launching a new sort of literary venture, to start with that phrase. In other programming-speak, we are 'greenfielding'. We are breaking new ground.

Plotopolis aims to publish interactive literary fiction to chat platforms.

Imagine the choice-based narratives of your youth:

The Cave of Time. My nine-year-old self spent many nights exploring the 39 possible endings.

Imagine that type of branching narrative, with a few game mechanics and paired with artwork, applied to, say, a Kelly Link or George Saunders short story. And? You read it in a chat interface, such as Telegram or Facebook Messenger.

Can it be done?

Well: Hello, World!

When we launched Gumball Poetry in 1998, we fretted similarly. It was another journal published unusually - a submission based journal of poetry, published into vending-machine capsules, with a piece of chewing gum.

You can get a taste of what I mean now. The first story in Plotopolis is called The Whale’s Keeper. It was entered into the Interactive Fiction Competition. This story was written by myself (Ben Parzybok) as a proof-of-concept, but Plotopolis will be a submissions-driven literary journal.

Please consider signing up for our mailing list to follow us on our journey. If you want to learn about how to submit, you can play our "About Plotopolis" story now, or see our submissions page for more info.