I know as an electronic writer I’m biased here, but I agree with your point about different types of reading as well as writing. There is already a lot of e-literature out there that requires different modes of reading and interaction to print literature, and it will have required a different type of writing from the author too - most if not all of it at a screen…

Personally I’m still slightly uncomfortable with the term ‘literature’ when used in comparisons of print and electronic, as for most people the term is too loaded with the notions and experience of print literature to accept the different goals, experience and required reading mindset of electronic. But hopefully this will change as more people come across it…

James, yes, of course that’s true, but my point is that it’s not the same kind of reading.

Far be it for me as a fully committed online novelist and writer to argue that paper is the only ‘natural’ state of literature, but I do find there are many different types of reading. It won’t do our cause any good to make what I perceive as problematic comparisons. Nor am I convinced that text is entirely divorced from its medium. This doesn’t mean that literature cannot exist online, but I’m beginning to suspect - and I grant you, this is entirely anecdotal and only based on very limited personal experience - that it may be a different sort of literature to what we know now. That, in fact, is the challenge and the fascination.

But I’m willing to be convinced of my wrong-headedness!

Beyond this facile point, I’m also trying to draw a line between the perceived ‘natural’ state of literature - upon paper - and the reality of it: that it exists independent of any medium, and is tied to none.