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Writers: Beat your pens into joysticks; trade your typewriters for Playstation 3s. There is, apparently, a new frontier for your art.

In an article that appeared in this week's New Yorker, Tom Bissell compares the philosophy behind the popular video game Gears of War to the " ‘vivid and continuous dream' that John Gardner spoke of concerning fiction." He goes on:

The novelist Nathan Englander, a fan of the game, cites its third-person viewpoint, in which the player looks over the shoulder of the character being controlled, as a key to its success. "In literary terms," Englander told me, "It's a close-second-person shooter. It's Jay McInerney and Lorrie Moore territory. You're both totally involved and totally watching." As for the collapsed architecture and blown-open spaces of the Gears world, Englander said, "There's the hospital from ‘Blindness' and the house from ‘The Ghost Writer,' and I know that beautiful, ruined world of Gears as well as either of those."

I saw Englander last winter when he was at the St. Paul JCC promoting his semi-recent book, The Ministry of Special Cases. His speaking style is tangential and discursive, though incredibly captivating. (His writing style, conversely, is pointed and economical, and incredibly captivating.) Mostly, while listening to him, I had the impression that I was attending the lecture of an incredibly intelligent pothead. On a purely speculative note, his penchant for 'Gears of War' kind of confirms that earlier inkling. Is it sad if that makes me like him a little more?

If Holden Caulfield thought that screenwriting was for phonies, one wonders what he'd think of writing video games. Nevertheless, sales last year in the gaming industry were higher than either the Hollywood box office rake or DVD revenues. One imagines it's only a matter of time before artists scramble for the chance to sell out and cash in.

But would it even be selling out?

If literature is on some level about creating an interesting character, or devising an alternate world, and then getting a reader to interact with that character or world, isn't a video game a sort of perfect medium? Okay okay okay, literature is about truth. And to the best of my knowledge, video games thus far are largely about fantasy. But I have to believe that if the reins were taken up by some serious-minded folk, some pretty awesome - even meaningful - games could come about. Given the popularity of first-person, narrative-driven concepts, it doesn't seem like such a stretch.

And hell, with Hollywood in its constant state of decline (aka Blockbusterism), and the emergence of video games as the medium of the new(ish) millennium - not to mention the oft-touted Death of the Novel - maybe this is The Writer's chance to modernize in an effective way. As opposed to the faux-modernization enabled by things like Facebook and Twitter, video games might make for a lasting, substantial revitalization of literature's initial aims.

On a local level, it's kind of already happening. At least, there's one instance I know of. This game, recently released by this company, (and produced by this guy), was written by Minneapolis' own playwright Nick Ryan of Four Humors Theater company. I don't have any real reason to mention this except to give a shout out to Mr. Ryan, who's plays consistently sell out Fringe Festival crowds.

The initial lit-to-vg transition would probably, like film, involve adapting books into games. So here's a list of a few possible choices, just to get started. Feel free to add.

White Noise: The action is propelled by the protagonist's nagging, ambiguous fear of death. He has to balance learning German with cowering from the strange toxic cloud that hovers above his city. Final task is to identify where the toxic leak came from, and plug it up.

Darkness at Noon or The Fixer: Think ‘Mario Party' or ‘Monkey Ball.' You're trapped in a prison cell, but equally trapped within your own existential crises. Instead of trying to escape, you devise several miniature games to pass the time. How many different alphabets can you make up to communicate with your neighboring prisoner? How many heel-to-toe paces across your cell can you amount before losing count?

Portnoy's Complaint: Rack up points by masturbating in unlikely locales. The final boss is Your Mother.