Hypercompendia

As ya’ll know, I’m a stark-raving maniac when it comes to my love of hypertext fiction and that, teamed with my overbearing, hard-headed, determined to make people see it-nature, made for a rather unhappy and tormented artistic soul at best since I can’t always have my own way.

Persistence is key; persistence and insistence can swiftly become unbearable to those upon whom it is focused. Even with my own experience of hypertext (and IF I might add) being one of cursing and slamming fists onto keyboards (I’m small but highly volatile) I still sought an avenue that was gold-paved and happy-treelined and as invitational and welcoming as possible.

And then came Maude. Maude Nichols was the fun, learning experience of hypertext. It is not put-offish, it’s a humorous easy read, it directly relates to the reader, and it looks like it’s brought in some writers interested in the medium now that it doesn’t seem so scary.

I belong to an online writers community called Fictionaut and the writing quality there, I must say, is phenomenal overall (I’m in awe and feel like I’m reading the best of the best contemporary short story writers and poets around). I’m easily intimidated but what the hell, I threw in a couple flash fiction pieces I wrote specifically for posting and then a hypertext piece. The piece was The Perfect Woman (also, like Maude, one of the 100 hypertexts from last summer’s project) and got a bit of interest. A few weeks later, I put up Maude. Maude now has twelve “favs” to it and more importantly, the comments indicate that these seasoned writers like the medium; had fun with it; some even impressed enough to try their own hand at it.

I just love it.

Ah, just edited my crowning achievement, the two-space, three-word hypertext story #93 Challenge and Response.

Not much you can do with three words, they’d been wrung out to their lightest, unwatered weight. But there was something specific to the hypertext medium that could be done: placement.

As a dialogue, and one with conflict as its main theme, it became obvious that placement of the two (hmmm, just realized that this would be interesting if I added more boxes repeating the dialogue to indicate other speakers getting in on the conversation/confrontation, perhaps specifying by color the unique individuals–actually, could go up to the hundreds in repetition as the argument escalates, but meanwhile…) speakers would enhance and ground the two speakers. So back I went into the css and made one space <div id=”left”> and the other <div id=”right”>. This little tweak actually puts the speakers on two different sides of the screen/argument visually. It also adds action via movement, though I personally might find it annoying. But then, arguments are expected to be.

While I say that this element of enhancement to story is specific to hypertext, it’s obviously used in film and graphics as well. I can think of comics, for example, where two characters at odds might be placed at either end of the panel, or in separate panels, reinforcing other indications of heated argument such as text, punctuation (!), a few squiggley lines off the tops of the characters’ heads as possibly fuming, facial expressions, and of course, words.

Now I’ll look deeper into editing those three words, or maybe adding a few more speakers to the soup.

Hmmm. While I’m working on getting the 100 hypertext stories into a Tinderbox file, some little problems are cropping up–not unexpected.

Have slowly changed the individual Tinderbox story files to include a note box titled “title” (or “titlec” which indicates the column css for the last 75 stories, although I’ve since changed the css on the first, but wait–that’s another whole can of worms because I’d have to change an awful lot of links already online so while they’ve been changed online to the column100.css from the main100.css, the title boxes still say title as they did–and this has to be the longest rambling explanation I’ve ever posted).

While in doing this, I’m matching the hard drive Mac file to what’s online, once I put the individual Tinderbox files into another main Tinderbox file, it reminds me that there’s already a file called “title” or “titlec”. Well, yes. There are 25 files that contain “title” and 75 files that contain “titlec.” So?

So this: In the main Tinderbox file I’ve changed the title boxes to reflect their numbers, i.e., “title33″ etc.

But what about the notes that are titled “sex,” “love,” “end,” and all the rest? I’m sure that in 100 stories in 100 days I’ve duplicated many, many note titles. I can be only so creative.

I’m sure there’s an answer in agents or prototypes which ties back in with the original goal of being able to export only a single note container and it’s babies (children) to the new land of promise. This is all being done only because I wanna somehow use some of these stories to publish to a new hypertext story website by the end of the year.

Much to think about.

Last night I took part in a panel discussion at Tunxis Community College (Farmington, CT) on the creative process along with five other participants in the 100 Days Project.

While I focused on the creative process of hypertext rather than my work, I probably inadvertently did a disservice to the medium. In showing the underpinnings of Tinderbox and the technical process of export templates, css, etc., I likely made it look more intimidating rather than a welcoming way of writing. The final stories, with their color and drama may have been more impressive and inviting than highlighting the html or the mapping–despite the fact that I personally find beauty in the symmetry and freedom of the process.

At any rate, being a writer not a speaker, I had my talk all written out and complete with the few visuals, have it available here and as a permanent link in the sidebar: The Creative Process: A Blend of Skills

While I’ve still not recovered from the 100-Day project to get back on track with reading and reviewing literature here, tonight along with five of the 14 participants I will be presenting a brief talk on the creative process.

In reworking and reorganizing the project I sometime stop and read some of the early ones I don’t even remember writing.

#28 Dreamers came to this and I laughed out loud:

In this story, there are five different endings. In real life, there are hundreds, maybe thousands more.

In hypertext story, we often allow ourselves choices, ways to return and rechoose. In this story, you are committed to the ending you chose just by the turns you have taken. Mayhaps you feel some regret.

Grow up. Just as in real life, some races cannot be rerun.

(Back to Home)

One of the projects I’m working on is getting the 100 Hypertexts Project into a Tinderbox File. Each individual story was created in an individual Tinderbox file, then sent out to a regular Document folder in a folder called Summer Project 09 on my Mac. Within each separate story folder was the Tbox file, the column100.html export template, the column100.css stylesheet with the color coding reflecting the particular story’s theme, an image of the Tbox map in .jpg, and the story page html files.

It worked well and I made it through without having time to learn how to properly use Tinderbox to create the entire project of 100 hypertext stories within a single file. Now I want to put them in there. With a bit of help, I’ve been able to drag the individual story Tbox files into containers in a new Tbox file.

I’ve just put in twenty of the stories so far, since this whole thing may not work in exporting yet as I would like it to. Meanwhile, there are some things that need to be cleaned up so that I’ve got all working in the same manner. Here’s the list of to do’s before I take it further:

1. Change hypertexts #1 through #25 from main100.html and main100.css to column100.html and column100.css. This involves changing the template choice in the Tinderbox program, changing the color codes into the new css, changing the individual pages to point to the new html and css. I could just let it go and play with it in the new Tbox file that I’m creating but I’m meticulous enough to want it right everywhere. (Though I’m not sure what I’ll do about the online versions which reflect the old styles!)

2. Add in the title writing space for all 100 hypertexts. I left the title separate in each folder just to play with colors and so it was never a part of the Tbox file. I am now putting in a title lexia and linking it in to each Tbox story file. Hopefully I won’t run into problems with a duplicate file on this later.

3. Find out whether the work I’m doing with the column100.css is the proper way of doing this; perhaps it will be better in a prototype to refer to the css and rename it to match the story, i.e., 1001.css or story1.css, story2.css, etc., so that Tbox doesn’t get confused with 100 really individual stylesheets all named the same. Come to think of it, the same problem may occur with the writing space called “title” or any other duplicated named spaces within the whole 100 stories. Something to think about.

4. Figure out or request a feature if necessary from Eastgate that would allow me to export just a story at a time, particularly if it’s all kept within a container. This is something that will need to be ironed out before I go and put the other eighty stories into this.

Now I don’t need to make this whole move, the project’s done and over with. And, I doubt I’d ever do it again next summer or whenever. But there are reasons to move forward on the concept. Personally, I may do something similar on a website where stories, poetry, and articles etc. on hypertext will be added on a weekly or monthly basis; an online hypertext literary journal so to speak. In that case, of course I’d like to use Tinderbox as the brain behind it all. I’m sure others do this with ease so there must be a way of exporting just portions of a file without exporting the whole thing.

This, I suppose, will be my autumnal project.

Prepping a talk on the creative process and it’s been fun looking back at some of the stories of the 100 Days Project. In particular, I love these maps:

(Click here to enlarge map)

(Click here to enlarge map)

I think that a good part of the creative spirit of this project went into the visuals as well as the text. When speaking of creative process, one cannot discount the tools: the software, the mechanics, the technical.

This is something I’ve wanted to do since I’d started the hypertext stories for the 100 day project and just never got time to spend to learn the full scope of the Tinderbox software and write some type of story too.

Right now, I’m putting the stories, which were each individually written in a Tinderbox file, into a Tinderbox 100 Stories File, hoping to eventually find out if they can be easily exported into html individually which was what I had to do with the stories being written and put online at the rate of one per day through this past summer.

There are things that I’d like to do with the project that would tie the individual stories into each other–some are actually serialized–and this compilation into one Tinderbox file would be the way to achieve that. In the image above, there are only twenty of the 100 hypertexts entered. I want to see exactly how they relate to each other before I put in the rest, make sure I can export each individually, and make use of some of the Tinderbox features. I’ve already created prototypes and some common attributes and there are some other delights to discover.

And yes, maybe I’ll even break out of my grid-form once I feel more comfortable.

Relaxing today, mentally coming down from a three-month routine that included anxious waiting for inspiration from 5:00 a.m. for a couple hours until a more reasonable hour of deliverance. From straining the brain for a new path of story through trails of possibilities. From learning more about code to development of narrative through color, pattern, choice, anticipation of reader input.

I don’t know that I’ve inspired anyone to try reading or writing hypertext fiction–except perhaps for Mary Ellen–and that was one of my own main goals, aside from the experimentation and learning of fiction first, hypertext second and all the extra bonuses that come with an undertaking of this sort.

But I do know I studied and learned daily from reading, watching, comprehending the artistic processes extended by the others in the group:

From Steve, the courage of going behind doors, into the corner, to leap given boundaries to find story and then sit and pick at the words.

From Carianne, to see things in a different way, to pull apart the strands of life and look inside for the colors.

From Mary Ellen, the indelible drawing of character by noticing the details of their interaction, their reaction, their actions.

From Maggie, the setting and environment of the story is just as important as the character and object.

From Susan, that the most intimate and common familiar items offer a match to the most wildly imaginative story.

From Neha, the power of poetry to produce using familiar language in unfamiliar settings to create an image.

From John, that story can cry, can holler in jubilation of sound, and that point of view changes angle of story.

From Denna, that an image can be so pronounced even when pulled from the vaguest of references when experienced by details.

From Mindy, that nature is in a constant state of narrative that changes with light and wind to tell a different tale every day.

From Jessica, that using the same medium and the same subject can offer at the very least 100 new angles if one seeks them.

From Jim, that code is a living thing that can be taught to dance.

From Steve K., that the planning is a part of the beauty of the process of building.

To them all I give thanks for the ability to watch and learn and wish them all lovely days of wild creativity.