Narratives come in multiple forms. First was oratory, or spoken word, which invited the accompaniment of gestures and multiple performers and became the play. Since spoken word was typically set in verse to aid the performer in remembering extended narratives, both monologues and plays, such as "The Iliad" and "Romeo and Juliette," respectively, are performed in poetry. Later, Gutenberg wrecked everybody's world with a way to quickly, cheaply produce written material. This sudden influx of literature helped increase literacy, and narratives could be permanently, or at least semi-permanently, recorded on paper. Without the need to remember every line, story tellers were freed from verse and could deliver narratives in prose. Thus, the novel was born.
Novels and short stories made their debut in the 18th century, and became the narrative of choice for the next two centuries. Though plays can sometimes better capture emotion and pleasantly surprise the audience with slight variations of delivery, they can also disappoint with poor delivery. The nature of performance also restricts the audience to the theater's schedule. Finally, plays are limited with the number and complexity of settings they can have in any given narrative. Novels, however, are a team effort between the author and the reader. When a reader finds an author they like, the two can produce experiences that are consistently satisfactory. Novels can feature settings that are limitless in both number and outrageous imagination, enriching old genres and enabling the advent of new ones, such as sci-fi. Perhaps most importantly, however, novels can be consumed on the reader's terms. You don't have to go to a specific location at a specific time to read. You can take a break whenever you want, skip the boring parts, and reread the complex or good parts. Unlike a play audience, a reader is in control of their entertainment. Whether a novel is the best way to deliver narrative is open for heated debate, but for these reasons it became the preferred method for consuming narrative.
Then technology struck again.
First it was just grainy, monochromatic stills. Then someone wanted to know if a galloping horse ever had all four hooves in the air at once, so instead of asking the Mongols (who could have told them, "not unless you specifically train them to do that, so you can accurately fire a bow from horseback), he invented motion picture. Then someone thought motion picture would be a great way to communicate narrative. Then came the talkies, and the actor's guilds, and the screenwriter's guilds, and novels found themselves supplanted by film as the narrative consumption method of choice. Film has most of the benefits of a play, in that they take absolutely no work on the part of the audience and can consequently produce an experience beyond the ability of the audience. With blu-ray and streaming services, film also has the advantages of a book in that it is under complete control of the consumer. Smartphones add portability to the list of advantages enjoyed by film. The consumer price of a new movie is pretty much the same as a hardcover book. With expanded budgets and CGI, film can produce the most extensive and elaborate settings with unmatched time efficiency, helping to reduce narrative consumption from a few days to a couple of hours.We are losing reasons to read and increasingly prefer to watch instead. The reign of the Author is over. Long live the Director.
Novelists have one salvation in the form of the eBook. In the past, publishers had to gamble. Underestimating the popularity of a book could be bad, overestimating could be worse. Crates of unsold paperbacks have been shredded and burned, as a novel the house thought would be well received instead falls flat. EBooks, however, eliminate the risk. No printing or shipping costs, just some formatting and you're done. Limitless copies can be produced and distributed for practically nothing, which means the sale of each eBook is pretty much just sweet, sweet profit to be split between the author and publisher. The result is that a plethora of books are available for just 99 cents a pop, and some of them might even be kind of good. EBooks from proven authors, who demand a little better compensation and merit some promotional consideration, can sell for $5 to $15. Any way you slice it, an eBook is cheaper than a trip to the cinema or a blu-ray, meaning authors can continue to be relevant in the present and future.
Still, we are not everybody's favorite. There are some who recognize the value of reading as opposed to film, but most people know that if a narrative is good enough it will be remade into film and they will just watch it then. In our current market, books alone are not sufficient to be culturally relevant.
