I was just reminded of the existence of Inkitt, a “story-farm” company similar to Wattpadd. Writers on Inkitt post stories, some of which earn mass readership. But Inkitt has a twist that I’ll let this TechCrunch article explain.

Everyone has a story in them, as someone famous once said. A startup called Inkitt believes that it can use AI to turn the strongest of these into blockbusters and to build a new “Disney” for the 21st century around that content. Now it’s raised $37 million in aid of that ambition.

The startup’s eponymous app lets people self-publish stories, and then, using AI and data science, it selects what it believes are the most compelling of these to tweak and subsequently distribute and sell on a second app, Galatea.

As I understand it, AI isn’t writing the stories, rather it’s making recommendations to authors as to how to tweak their stories for mass appeal. (Personally, I wouldn’t care if AI was writing the stories; I seem to be one of the few people not apoplectic about generative AI. But that’s a rant for another day.)

I bring this all up to go in a different direction. In Inkitt’s model, as I understand it, someone writes a story and reader feedback and AI data analysis mumbo jumbo says, “why not rewrite the end so that the villain gets eaten by alligators?” (Or something like that.) But the novel still exists as a singular (albeit malleable) entity.

Could we be on the verge of multiversioned stories? Will we soon choose from Snow White (Happy Version), Snow White (Tragic Version), Snow White (Chainsaw Massacre Version)? Will stories be split into multiple versions so that everyone gets the flavor they want?

It reminds me of the multiverse idea from quantum physics and popularized in comic books. According to this theory, there are many versions of our existing universe, each one slightly different from the next. Each Snow White story could be thought of as occurring in a different universe.

Or, recall the old Choose Your Own Adventure novels. With multiversioned books, instead of choosing what path to follow, the reader would select what they want to happen.

Is this a good idea? Am I recommending it? My gut reaction is no. I like consuming a work knowing that it will not kotow to my (or anyone’s) wants and needs. I like the story to have a certain personal autonomy (even if that idea really makes no sense.) If the story demands it, I want the sympathetic character to die, even if it distresses me. (Of course, I realize this is a naïve view. Hollywood audience-tests movies all the time. But the filmmakers ultimately settle on a single version,)

Also, on a societal level, I think there’s something to be said for narratives as a shared experience. Even if you didn’t like the ending of the TV shows LOST or Dexter (both of which I actually liked), at least we, as a society, have a kind of shared ownership of those endings. If we all get our own ending, it just feels like we drift even further apart. (Audiences bickering over the ending of LOST maybe be the only thing preventing global civil war!)