Most fiction and creative productions are ‘two dimensional’ – books, movies, video games, paintings. This, of course, is far from a bad thing, nor can one say that these media themselves have been explored to their full potential. Here, however, is the point at which other forms of fiction begin to emerge by incorporating additional techniques which involve the audience to some additional, more personal degree.

• A billboard presents a strange, incomplete message, causing you to wonder about it and want to find out more about its meaning when you get home. You don’t have to dig deeper, but you want to.

• A song breaks out in a restaurant and a dance troupe composed of people you thought were regular patrons like you begins singing and performing a musical around you. You could leave, but you decide to see it through.

• You walk down a sidewalk and notice, phrase by phrase, a message written by a poet in the cement and you keep walking, watching, so you can read the remainder. You could walk away and forget about it, but you want to find out the rest.

• A phone number appears in a commercial or tv show, and you decide to call it, finding a recorded message that reveals a bit more about a character. You could shrug it off, but you curiously take the time to try out the phone number.

Without Reality, a work of fiction exists in its own world, contained in its own package. It asks the audience to enter its world for a period of time – a temporary escape from reality. It doesn’t involve the audience as themselves, in a personalized experience. The above are some examples of how an expression, a story, or a creative work incorporates and engages the audience beyond simply providing a packaged, self-contained, temporary experience. In this way, the audience may then also become the presentation medium – word or excitement spreads, not directly by the efforts of the creator, but by the choice of the audience.

The fictional world then exists in the audience’s real world, not forced, but by choice.

…Or is it?

What happens when the audience interacts with the creator’s creation? Does it nullify his story? Does it halt his creativity? Does it cause the creator to toss his hands up in frustration at a ruined masterpiece? Well in some cases it might. But when the creator of a work of fiction embraces this fourth dimension- interactivity, or Gameplay, it once again enters a whole new realm of story-telling. The audience could be said to become players, part of the story, or even creators themselves.

Where the dimension of Reality implies that the fictional world crosses into the audience’s world and continues to play out there, the Game dimension implies that the fictional world is directly affected by the audience’s actions. Note here that Reality and Game are not tied at the hip. A fictional world can be affected by the audience’s actions without truly entering the audience’s reality. At the same time, a fictional world that enters the audience’s reality isn’t necessarily altered by the audience’s actions.

• Where the billboard presented a message causing you to go home and dig deeper into its meaning, the billboard didn’t change. What if your search led you to a website that allowed you to change the message on the billboard, add to it, enhance it for the next person who drives by?

• Where the song and dance broke out around you in the restaurant and entertained you in your own environment, you were never really a part of the story. What if a character pulled you up and gave you a microphone so you could respond to a character in the play, who would then respond in return?

• Where the phone number you called presented to you a recorded message that enhanced the character’s story, you only listened. What if the next day, the character from that commercial noticed that you called, and then returned your call?

This is the world of interactive fiction.

In recent years, creators of these works have been trying more often to break free of two dimensions, and engage not only the audience’s mind and emotion, but their body and conscious thoughts, away from typical presentation methods- extending a hand as it were, to engage each other in a dance of storytelling.

Interactive fiction doesn’t necessarily have to enter the audience’s reality, however, insomuch as it makes limited use of the audience’s interaction. A board game can tell a story, and engage the audience physically, but it’s still an engagement bound by the presentation medium. “Clue” for example, tells a different story every game, but the story is created by elements in the package, and asks the players to play roles while unraveling the story. This fiction might be considered three dimensional – it began with an endeavor, was presented in a medium, and incorporated interaction and gameplay. If one were to add Reality to Clue, one might stumble into the realm of the “murder mystery” game. Here players can interact with the characters, explore the scenes, examine objects– perhaps the game expands beyond the murder scene to play out through the following week; perhaps around the city; perhaps upcoming events are influenced by the daily actions of the players.

Now, it’s a fine line that’s walked when labeling examples of creative works under coined terminologies, and could be debated to no end. Mainstream media contains a myriad of unique, creative experiences, and in recent years, developers and bloggers have been debating over and creating new names that could appropriately describe these projects. Some are labels claimed in business, some are formed in an effort to be different and unique, some try to embrace communities that already exist and associate games with existing labels.

There is no right or wrong here, simply a melting pot of creativity and experimentation. It is what it is. 4D Fiction is not a label, it’s not a genre, it’s not a style of gameplay. It’s simply another perspective- another way of trying to mentally organize the creative chaos into meaningful ideas.

4DFiction.com is simply dedicated to exploring fiction and storytelling that crosses over into our reality – fiction that EMRGes.

The 4th physical dimension is generally considered to be time. Certainly a factor in developing these projects is time – is the creation an experience that can take place only once and for those who are involved, or can it be experienced again at later dates or by a different audience? In this context, a work of 4D Fiction isn’t defined by this, but it is certainly a factor to be considered in the creative process.

Wikipedia: The fourth wall refers to the imaginary “wall” at the front of the stage in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The term also applies to the boundary between any fictional setting and its audience. When this boundary is “broken” (for example by an actor speaking to the audience directly through the camera in a television sitcom), it is called “breaking the fourth wall.”

By recognizing up to a 4th dimension, 4DF implies there is still a boundary, a limitation to this level of creative production. 4D fiction is still a self-contained entity, technically. Here, however, a work of 4D fiction isn’t defined by recognition of this boundary. Where the 4th wall exists and where the philosophical mantra of “This Is Not A Game” exists (in short, avoiding the paradox of a character recognizing its own fictional nature), recognition of them doesn’t define 4D Ficton, yet how they are incorporated in the creative production is certainly a factor. The integrity of the 4th wall and the nature of a characters’ existence are being challenged more often as days go on and this style of storytelling evolves. A creative work may or may not recognize the 4th wall, and 4DF allows for this.