prosestream

Prosestream is a term used in discussions of digital literature and streaming media to describe a mode of prose presentation characterized by a continuous flow of writing presented as a stream, rather than divided into conventional chapters or pages. The word combines prose and stream to signal both the production process and the reader experience, which can resemble live or real-time content delivery.

In practice, a prosestream may be produced in real time by an author or generated and delivered through a streaming interface. Text may appear incrementally on a screen, with minimal pauses between segments, or be rendered as an audio narration synchronized with the written content. Prosstreams can be delivered via live-writing sessions, scheduled feeds, or on-demand streams that simulate ongoing narration.

The audience interacts through comments, timestamps, or pacing controls, influencing what is written or read next. The format is used in experimental literary projects, journalistic experiments, and some serialized fiction platforms aiming to evoke immediacy, immersion, or communal reading experiences.

Technically, prosestreams rely on streaming or incremental delivery mechanisms, such as feeds, web sockets, or progressive loading, to provide continuous text or audio. Accessibility considerations, including screen readability and pacing controls, are important for wide adoption.

Reception to prosestream as a literary form has been mixed. Proponents emphasize immediacy and collaborative potential, while critics cite concerns about coherence, digestion, and the potential for pacing to vary or degrade reading comprehension.

See also: stream-of-consciousness, live writing, serialized fiction, digital storytelling.