I don’t usually share things as mundane as dreams but the one last night was … interesting.

In the dream, I held a tablet in hand preparing to read  an interactive novel in my preferred writing genre of contemporary romance. There was a choice of about 20 starting points set out in icons. I tapped on one and read the first scene. Up popped the icon screen again for me to choose which path the story should take. I randomly selected the next scene. With that scene done, the choice screen reappeared. At this point, the dreaming me shoved the tablet to one side declaring that an interactive novel was a boring way to read a story!

The dream agitated me into wakefulness and I had to jump out of bed and walk around the room for several minutes to slough off my irritation before climbing back under the covers.

The waking me has pondered this all day. I have no experience of interactive novels beyond those written for children and I have shared a couple of those with my grandson who delighted in  the opportunity to experience so many different options. But I have never read one targeting an adult audience so I cannot fathom why the dreaming me was so judgmental!

My apologies to all those wonderfully creative authors who can follow the same story down so many different paths and still make sense. I won’t rule out ever reading an interactive romance novel but I think I’ll just hit the second icon from the top until my version of the story runs its course.