nfortunately, reading fiction online feels much like a chore. Most stories published electronically are seldom read to their conclusions. After all, why sit up straight and stare into a monitor if the experience offers nothing beyond scanning black ink on white paper?

As the monks discovered during the Middle Ages, embellishing a prose document can make it more enticing while doing nothing to alter text.

Enter, the

"But wait!," the old-school critic shouts from behind his stack of moldy volumes. "Iluminating a story's text dilutes its descriptive authority and hinders the imagination (and so on and so forth)."

Because the iManuscripts do indeed come partially pre-visualized, that may well be so. But . . .

• Since the illumination is performed by the author, why not view it as an extension of the creative process? The text and images are designed to complement each other rather than compete.

• The illumination serves as a stimulant to the imagination rather than as its replacement, much like with a graphic novel (minus the comic book format). But the iManuscripts are much more than narrated cartoons. You still have to read the text, look at the pictures, and then think.

• And besides, it's no longer 1900. The world has changed. Either literary conventions can, too, or the relevance of written fiction will continue its downward spiral.

• Because really, of what value is a story that nobody reads?