I know there are some good FAQs on your first question, as well
as resources for online writers...I'll post the pointers if I can dig them
up.
Regarding the ability to create literature like the kind you
mention, that's quite possible! There are so many ways you can create
literature electronically, especially on the World-Wide Web, I'm
surprised no one has really done it yet.
I like the religion ex-StorySpace web...I had the opportunity
to see Landow in Seattle at the Hypertext '93 conference, where he
showed some of his students' more "avant-garde" works. One which
caught my eye was a StorySpace creation in which the links (they look
like small boxes on the screen) made a picture. The user would select an
element in the picture and be transported into a part of the virtual
literature.
You could have something like this on the Web...larger pictures
made up of icons, each one going to a link in the work...
random poetry made of verse databases, with forms so people could
vote on how the computer should "generate" the literature...
books with each phrase being a link; after a period of time the links
the user selected could reassemble themselves into a new story, guided
by the user...it would be fairly easy, I think, to have a computer
coach you into writing a story without a certain letter or letters, just
have it display all the options for you, grouped by nouns, verbs,
adjectives, etc. Then just piece them together, perhaps by selecting
links...
Well, a lot is possible. Is anyone else out there working on
StorySpace ports?
-- Kev