Once upon a time, I completed a PhD in transmedia writing. Those were halcyon days – the earnest-to-the-point-of-wanking, intellectual discussions with academics (first year), swanning around in coffee shops thinking passionately about my research (second year), taking up writing fan fiction and trying to convince my husband that this was a valid career pathway (the end is nigh) and then finally sitting down in front of the computer and pumping out my thesis (final six months) (A good motivation technique I learnt is to get pregnant as the extra weight really makes sitting down appealing).

My PhD is a practice-based research project, meaning it consists of a studio component as well as a thesis. The studio component is a story application designed for the tablet called Limerence. It is way more experimental than anything I have ever done. Limerence is a fragmented story about love, friendship, and social connections in cyberspace. The story application is designed for the tablet and is a commentary on the way our culture digests media—the way that media has been embedded into our daily lives, our guilty, voyeuristic pleasure, and our addiction to being online.

The story application is available for free here: httpss://appsto.re/au/ctjKdb.i

It is compatible with iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 4, iPad Mini 2 and iPad Pro.

(Update: It is no longer available as I’ve stopped paying for the annual renewal fee!)

Both Limerence and the accompanying thesis investigated how writers should approach interactivity when designing digital literature. I basically came up with a new framework called the ‘transmedia triangle’ which showed that there are three types of interaction: gaming, filmic and reading.

Most interactive narrative works borrow heavily from gaming types of interactivity but for readers, we should be designing towards ‘readerly’ interactivity. I won’t focus on any details here but anyone interested can read my 58,000 word thesis which is now online:

httpss://www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/items/25e4fa82-4805-4755-9400-544c530ea805/1/