Hypercompendia

Since I tend to get totally immersed in a writing project to the extent of dropping meals and wifely duties to follow my fancy, I’ve been dawdling on the hypertext end of things and it’s nice that Storyspace isn’t a vocal program–though audio may be included and that’s a thought for another post and don’t you just love these long flowing sentences?  Rather stream of consciousness of me and I’m at least a notch about Faulkner’s Benjy for clarity of thinking.

Anyway, since I’m planning to use Paths as an example in a presentation on how hypertext and writers learn to play well together, I need to sharpen it up a bit.  And that’s got a deadline on it.

I’m also considering working on another piece in Hypercopendia even as I’m working on one (of several) in Storyspace because…well, just because. 

Then there’s good old fashioned single page single flow writing that I haven’t done in quite a while as far as the fiction end is concerned.  That’s got a more immediate deadline if I want to pass my CW course.  It’s all a case of what story works with what medium…

Then there’s flash.

For what purpose I don’t know, except perhaps to not have something out there that’s bound to bite you in the ass someday.  There are still two copies of a novel I wrote ten years ago that readers haven’t returned that while I’m certain have long since been thrown away, make me cringe to think are still possibly available somewhere to be seen.

Little by little, I’m reaclimating myself to the Storyspace hypertext Paths in an effort to reassess and reclaim it.  The writer of A Bottle of Beer might be ashamed of a connection to the former hypertext, and the next piece of work should be even more unwilling to claim it, as well as a long series of traditional text stories that she for some pale reason cannot find the courage to delete from the hard drive.  There are a very few of the many that have value in a majority of the elements: style, story, narrative pace and plot, language, meaning, impact.

Yet it’s a writer’s conflict to look back or move on.  Choices must be made. Time is short.

Congratulate me, I’ve made it through the whole day today without logging in to Hypertextopia and editing or even visiting to read. 

It’s like the first day of school for your youngest child.  The wrench of separation, the wondering if the other kids will like yours, if he’ll be scared and miss you.

Then I tell myself:  It’s only a story.

Sometimes all you need is a pat on the head and a kick in the butt to do what you should know by now but forget and get lost in the journey. Feeling a hundred percent better in the rewriting, chopping out, cleaning to the most showing of words that presents a picture story of this piece. 

A Bottle of Beer is taking a better shape in its trimming down of excess fat and focus on the high cheekbones, the wide-boned pelvis more perfect for birthing a child.

There are so many new programs to learn in Mac that offer similar functioning to what Ive been used to in Windows that I’m playing with them just to become acquainted. 

While I’ve never been one to play movies on the computer or run the TV through (why?  a 13-inch screen?) it’s been interesting just to see what’s available here.  Why it took me a year before I realized that Windows Moviemaker came with the package and was on the laptop waiting for me.  But I’m really hot to get the Adobe CS on it so I can at least play in Photoshop a bit.

The Storyspace project is moving slowly as I’m relearning how to do things and finding what I need to make things work.  I’ve been writing in the Windows version for now just as the mood hits but not going off in too many trails so it doesn’t get hairy to transfer.  A story is developing here but it’s getting more complicated as I take different trails to answer questions raised by the reading.

All in all, aside from a dandruff problem, the Mac has been an interesting experience so far.  (For example, putting the link from text to site didn’t work on this last sentence.  Now that’s a bummer in a hypertext-minded world.)

There’s a story developing here, and though it’s not the sci fi (that’s another project, Timesavers) and what I’m hoping for is to blend storytelling with deep character and relationship revelations and some Marquez thrown in for fun.  What I’d really love to produce is a Marquez/McCarthy/Faulkner styled hypertext and this story may have the potential to at least reach for these areas of the masters.

First there is the disbelief.  Like stepping through the beaded curtain into a room lit by a single candle into a dark burgundy red.  A gypsy smiles up toothlessly.  Claws made more grotesque by too many gold rings caress a crystal globe where your great grandfather grins wide in fisheye style, his nose a third of his face, his eyes one on each side of his head.  He fingers the inside of the glass as if seeking a crack.  You wonder what he wants.

Life is seen with shreds of real still hanging off and stitched with thread that threatens to break with a single breath to turn bizarre and tattered.

Why didn’t Bonnie answer him?  Oh yeah, and why was she floating in the middle of the room?  The first thing he could think to do that made sense was to right the chair that lay on its side beneath her feet.

Meanwhile, the story appears to be following a main path with the side trails of what I would have called backstory, except that in the Storyspace environment, it is at the same time foreshadowing.  Not only depending upon when it is read, but also on the random layout encouraged by hypertext in thinking about the story.  It’s a layering that builds a story, yet it’s the story that promotes recall and this is where layers come into being.  Here’s a map view, early stages, but I’m sort of hesitating to get too far into this since I may be switching Storyspace formats.

This seems very simple a framework, but I can visualize how it will expand and in what areas there will be alternative trails and how the story can return to itself in different spaces of time.

I really could use that cabin in the woods for this one though.

This is just too funny.  In working on Gap–which I think is the title of my second Storyspace project–I’m finding a similar pattern emerging as I’d seen in Paths. 

If I ever became famous for writing, I’d probably be able to coin a phrase for this style and it’d be something like "hunger" or "menu" writing.  I’ll betcha that at least half the writing spaces mention food in one manner or another and in Paths, I became aware of it early enough to play on that and many of the links are based on either eggs or berries, pies or wine.  Shoot, even one scenario that has a main character sitting in her car waiting anxiously for an important meeting she’s parked in front of a supermarket and plans her grocery list as she waits.

Maybe this belongs more into the realm of theme than motif.  Or maybe I can tell folks it’s metaphor or symbolism.

Maybe I’ll become a millionaire by creating the first hypertext library-cafe where when you read (the screens and literature supply are at every table) "peaches" you click and not only get to the next writing space, but a fresh peach drops out of a chute to roll into your left hand.  Feeding mind and body at the same time.

Hmmm.

This is more the flavor of what I wanted the narrative to be.  It’s more subtle and may even lend itself to some humor.

The shriek of siren startled her and she’d tapped the gas pedal in reactionary fear.  She shifted her foot to the brake and looked into the rearview mirror.  Blue flashes whirled within it and for a second she was tempted to try to get away.  She realized it would be useless and slowed  and pulled over.

Jayne Evans looked younger than fifty-six but she knew the cop walking up behind her would insist on seeing her license.  She didn’t have one, of course.  For several years now no one over fifty-five was legally allowed to drive.

Sort of a new beginning after a false start, approaching story in my more usual manner of just writing without thought of where it’s going.  More important for me, somehow, to bring a character to life and plop him into a scene and go from there.

This is based on the same premise as before, but I find it much easier to write prose and fill spaces as  they open up rather than create the structure and force-fit the text within the parameters.  If an offshout comes up, it’s easy enough in Storyspace to make it into a separate thread simply by marking with path name or color-coding.  Especially at this early stage, the color coding is really helpful.

Not exactly flying fingers whipping up story here today.  At first I thought that maybe it was the pressure of filling and stacking Storyspace boxes that is preventing a real flow of writing on what I thought was an exciting idea. 

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m as excited about the story line as I thought I was and it seems I’m forcing myself to focus on it rather than joyfully skipping along leaving a trail of dust in my wake.

Already, a different story is forming and that may be the way to go.  All I need is to get that first paragraph down that leads me onward.