C ya laterrrr

Last updated

C ya laterrrr
Author Dan Hett
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genres Hypertext fiction, Electronic literature, Interactive fiction
Publication date
2017
Media typeWeb, Twine
Award2020 New Media Writing Prize

C-ya-laterrrr is an autobiographical hypertext fiction written by Dan Hett about losing his brother in the Manchester Arena bombing. It won the New Media Writing Prize in 2020.

Contents

Plot and structure

C-ya-laterrrr is a text-only game or hypertext fiction written in Twine (software). The story is written in the second person, following the convention of interactive fiction. The beginning positions you as a parent in a quiet house after the kids are asleep, and asks whether you want to scroll on your phone - there has been some event - or go to sleep:

Your eyes are starting to get tired, which you take as a signal to put the thing down and get some sleep. You're thinking about it, when you notice a sudden flurry of activity on social media about something going on in the city. A bang, an accident maybe. No details, no actual news, just busybodies speculating. Every time. It was like this during the riots a few years ago, you remember arguing a lot with people about it.

Dan Hett, "C-ya-laterrrr", First page

The next lines provide links leading to two choices: "Scroll through some of the posts" or "It's not important. Get some sleep."

The branching structure where the reader is constantly forced to make choices is particularly poignant because we know that these were real choices that the author had to make. As readers we are able to explore all options, but we are always aware that in real life there is no chance to go back and try a different option. Hett has emphasised the importance of these constant choices in interviews, saying that C-ya-laterrrr is "as much about what I didn't do as what I did do." [1]

Reception

A lengthy review in The Guardian wrote that C-ya-laterrrr's "intimacy comes from its interactivity" [2] Another reviewer described the work as deeply emotional, writing that it was "hard and sober and it captured the very strange lucidity that comes with waking grief". [3]

The work won the New Media Writing Prize in 2020 [4] and was part of the "Digital Storytelling" exhibition at the British Library in 2023. [5] [6] Hett has written two other works about his grief at the loss of his brother, including The Loss Levels.

Hett's work allowed readers to empathise with his experience and the resulting exposure lead to apologies from some of the reporters that approached him so soon after the tragedy. [7]

This work was exhibited at the British Library 2023

C ya laterrrr by Dan Hett, exhibit at the British Library 2023 C ya laterrrr by Dan Hett, exhibit at the British Library 2023.png
C ya laterrrr by Dan Hett, exhibit at the British Library 2023

Related Research Articles

The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize was a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kingdom. Established in 1942, it was one of the oldest literary awards in the UK.

Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories. Its spirit can also be seen in interactive fiction.

The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize or Guardian Award was a literary award that annual recognised one fiction book written for children or young adults and published in the United Kingdom. It was conferred upon the author of the book by The Guardian newspaper, which established it in 1965 and inaugurated it in 1967. It was a lifetime award in that previous winners were not eligible. At least from 2000 the prize was £1,500. The prize was apparently discontinued after 2016, though no formal announcement appears to have been made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic literature</span> Literary genre created for digital devices

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. As electronic literature uses games, images, sound, and links, these writings cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the text are unable to be carried over onto a printed version.

Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story.

Blog fiction is an online literary genre that tells a fictional story in the style of a weblog or blog. In the early years of weblogs, blog fictions were described as an exciting new genres creating new opportunities for emerging authors, but were also described as "notorious" in part because they often uneasily tread the line between fiction and hoax. Sometimes blog fictions are republished as print books, and in other cases conventional novels are written in the style of a blog without having been published as an online blog. Blog fiction is a genre of Electronic literature.

The Orwell Prize is a British prize for political writing. The Prize is awarded by The Orwell Foundation, an independent charity governed by a board of trustees. Four prizes are awarded each year: one each for a fiction and non-fiction book on politics, one for journalism and one for "Exposing Britain's Social Evils" ; between 2009 and 2012, a fifth prize was awarded for blogging. In each case, the winner is the short-listed entry which comes closest to George Orwell's own ambition to "make political writing into an art".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yiyun Li</span> Chinese writer and professor

Yiyun Li is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose. She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.

The Waterstones Children's Book Prize is an annual award given to a work of children's literature published during the previous year. First awarded in 2005, the purpose of the prize is "to uncover hidden talent in children's writing" and is therefore open only to authors who have published no more than two or three books, depending on which category they are in. The prize is awarded by British book retailer Waterstones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony McGowan</span> English author

Anthony John McGowan is an English author of books for children, teenagers and adults. He is the winner of the 2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal for Lark.

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The Stella Prize is an Australian annual literary award established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrice Lawrence</span> British writer and journalist

Patrice Lawrence MBE, FRSL is a British writer and journalist, who has published fiction both for adults and children. Her writing has won awards including the Waterstones Children's Book Prize for Older Children and The Bookseller YA Book Prize. In 2021, she won the Jhalak Prize's inaugural children's and young adult category for her book Eight Pieces of Silva (2020).

Max Porter is an English writer, formerly a bookseller and editor, best known for his debut novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers.

Lynda Clark is an author and creator of interactive fiction. Her short story, “Ghillie’s Mum” won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Europe and Canada in 2018, and was shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Award in 2019. Her debut novel, Beyond Kidding, was published by Fairlight Books in October 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Hett</span> English artist

Dan Hett is a digital artist, writer and games designer from Manchester, UK. He is also a member of the Algorave live coding electronic music and visuals movement, performing under the name Rituals.

Online Caroline was a web soap opera in 24 episodes written and published online by Tim Wright, Rob Bevan and Tom Harvey at the production company XPT in 2000. It was "an instant hit" and won that year's British Academy of Film and Television Arts award in the interactive category.

With Those We Love Alive Is a Twine interactive fiction video game written by Porpentine. It was released on October 1st, 2014 in both English and Hungarian. The musical score was composed by Brenda Neotenomie.

Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the debut book by Max Porter, a novella about grief, published in 2015.

References

  1. Batchelor, James (2018-09-04). "The video game creator turning his grief into art". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. MacDonald, Keza (2018-04-26). "Games console: Dan Hett, the indie game designer pouring his grief into interactive art". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. "Home". The White Pube. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  4. 1 2 "Interview with Main Prize winner Dan Hett". New Media Writing Prize. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  5. "New Interactive Exhibition Showcases How Technology Is Transforming Storytelling". www.finebooksmagazine.com. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  6. Nielsen, Holly (2023-06-16). "Check this out: the British Library gets into gaming". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  7. Pidd, Helen; editor, Helen Pidd North of England (2022-05-21). "Martyn Hett: Victim's family recall Manchester Arena attack 5 years on". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-09-25.{{cite news}}: |last2= has generic name (help)
  8. "c ya laterrrr by danhett". itch.io. Retrieved 2023-07-26.