This idea literally came to me in a dream last night. It was a book, a paper book actually, and the first page was thick, with the consistency of three layers of cardboard. Sandwiched between that cardboard was a set of paper gears…

On the face of that page, lied several attributes. Name, eye color, hair color, personality; paper dials on each side of the attributes allowed for adjustment of them. From there, the pages began to flip, with sections of the book highlighted, responding to each of the dial turns.

My eyes slowly opened to a blurry “6:04″ in the midst of sunrise; between the state of sleep and wake, my thoughts were merging with reality. How would such a thing work? I began to ask myself. Was there something mechnical in each and every page, or was there something in the spine of the book itself?

My drowsy mind gave up on the realistic mechanical possibility, and began to think electronically. What if an e-book allowed one to specify these attributes, and the story could change based on what the user has chosen for the character of the story to be?

This concept isn’t new in gaming, specifically in the role-playing genre. The closest thing I can think of in terms of a book is the choose-your-own-adeventure style book, where you are constantly flipping from one end of the book to the other depending on the determined decision one wishes to turn to.

However, I’ve never seen such a concept in an electronic book. The ability to become the character, and have the story become attuned to your own creation. At that point, what kind of story does it become? Does it lose its identity as a genre? What kind of team would it take to write such a story?

I began coughing as I slept very early from having the flu, and got up to take another dose of NyQuil. Perhaps another dream will come again.