Hypercompendia

This is really the first time I’ve used Tinderbox as an organizational tool, although I have created projects after-the-fact, such as putting the 100 Hypertexts from last year’s project into a file and used Tinderbox to write the hypertext stories themselves. The map:

I’ve posted previously on this project but at this point, it has all the stories completed–126 of them (additional stories for another summer challenge above the 100 Days). The major visual sorting of the stories was for theme of Self, Society, Relationships, and Universe; Universe covering not only apocalyptic and such, but anything that didn’t clearly go under one of the other three main lines. For this I used Adornments so that I have an instant visual of the various stories.

Another important sort was for story length, or word count and for this I used Agents. While they are all under 1000 words and would be considered flash fiction (with the exception of a couple poems), for submission purposes, I decided to separate them down a bit more into three categories of word count that I recognize as popular cut-offs with the publications. Therefore, I have Under 300, 300 to 500, and 500 and Over.  I can, of course get more detailed simply by creating another agent, but the breakdowns as they are have already cut back on the number of stories I’d have to go through by two-thirds. Note that while I have the word count (as determined by Pages) in the text box, the Agents are solely responsible for counting it up themselves. Of course, additional data as described below is included in the count but I’m aware of that so can adjust.

The third major category was genre. While I don’t really write genre fiction, there are some breakdowns here that will help: Narrative Poetry, Mainstream, Women’s Fiction, Speculative, Magical Realism, Social Statement, and Humor. More may come up–I haven’t quite finished labeling all the stories yet–and some fit into more than one genre category. The way I’ve used the Agents for this is to have them collect by the word/s “Mainstream” for example, but I’ve typed this information into the writing space of the story:

While this method of using agents may not work for all projects, it was fine for this one, where the additional data included in the box did not interfere with the information. I’ll need to go though at some point and learn the strings to put into the agent or probably more likely, how to code the individual space itself to be picked up by the Agent.

In the above image, you can see another of the selections I’ve made. I’ve marked the stories “Favorites” (if I liked ‘em) to ensure that those will be the first to be submitted. There’s also a Submitted Agent, and a Published Agent to keep track of the comings and goings of the story submission process. This is where I’ll be focusing through the next couple of months.

The final Agent is one that I used as an example of drilling down for theme. In this case, I had the Agent search for stories that held the word “rain” because I knew there were a few and it was just a test. Publishers of magazines often have theme-based story lines that they are seeking, so this type of Agent will be a more precise segregation based on theme, or even a particular word.

While I haven’t completely edited all the stories, nor have I marked them all for most logical genre(s), I think that as soon as that effort is done, Tinderbox will make the rest of the submission process streamlined and simple.

What this Tinderbox map tells me is that I tend to write more relationship-based stories than other themes. What I don’t have yet (and it’s about time I did but I’m just so overwhelmed with writing right now) is have each story coded for genre, although I do have the easier, obvious ones like sci fi and magical realism done on the more recent entries. The Agents will be a huge help in September when it comes to start submitting some of these stories to literary journals. More on my participation in the project on Spinning.

Some minor changes from the last post, aside from the additional stories added–I’m up to fifty now. While I haven’t sorted them all out, I have agents set up for some of the genres, as well as stories set for publication and those I’ve started to send out.

Meanwhile, the setup that I have for the stories is to include an image with each. I usually end up taking a new photograph but can often find something from my files that I can use. If worst comes to worst, I depend on paper and pencil. Then comes the fun part, I make a dupe to cover my ass, then open up Photoshop and start to play. While no, I haven’t yet gotten completely over the filter gallery, I do know how to manipulate the effects to get an image that has the feel of the story.

Today I tried something new; layering two completely different images into one. Now that was fun and I’m sure it’ll come in handy in the future and it opens up all sorts of possibilities. Of course, the next ten stories are likely to be graced with these two-in-ones as I do tend to go overboard on new things.

Still haven’t quite figured out the Attributes to get them working with the Agents, but that’s my own fault because 1) I’m not a good follower of directions but tend to wander off and poke around on my own, and 2) because of 1) I’ve got something that works for me, though it’s not the right way of doing it and will undoubtedly not work for a project that isn’t set up the same way or for the same purpose.

What I’m attempting to do is write a string of code that will tell the agent that something is any of a few specific genres (Humor, Magical Realism, blah-blah-blah) and I’m not sure that the attribute can be assigned to certain notes only. This is what the Tinderbox manual is for, the Tinderbox Way book, and the Tinderbox Forum.

Update on the 100 Days Project tomorrow or in a couple days, as I’ve reached the fifty-stories mark.

Finally got some time and mental energy today to go back and tackle the Agents feature of Tinderbox. With another bit of help from Steve Ersinghaus, I found the problem that had me stymied for a while this morning in the code string. Right now, I’m working with the current (summer 2010) project for which I’m writing a story each day.

I’d already separated the stories by Adornments into four categories of conflict but there were many more ways I wanted to sort them. So far, I’ve only got 37 stories, but there are a few I know I’d like to submit at some point and one that has already been taken for publication, so “Favorites” and “Published” became necessary Agents. The other obvious sort, geared towards the literary market, are “Word Count” and “Genre” as this would help me narrow down style of story and word count restrictions to the particular magazine.  These Agents will also be integrated into the “Literary Endeavors” Tinderbox file I have nearly complete as far as entries, as well as last year’s 100 hypertext stories from the 100 Days 2009 project.

Okay, so I cheated a lot on getting the agents to work by merely entering the text “Favorites” for example, into the box of the item, above the story, rather than properly create Attributes. That’ll come as soon as I’ve got all Agents set up and working here, and before I use that information in the other two project. I’m psyched!

It’s Day #18 and as you can see, I’ve since added another Adornment labeled “Universe” which is sort of a catchall for stories that either have something to do with the world and nature at large or simply don’t fit real well into the other categories.

I’ve also added a couple of Notes (templates, images) and a couple of Agents (Word Count, Favorites–and I know I’ll want Genre eventually) though I haven’t yet set them up to work properly. All in good time.

This is the first time I’ve actually used Tinderbox as the working form of a project from the beginning. The last 100 Days project I’m still in the process of entering into a Tinderbox file–though the hypertext pieces themselves were all written into individual Tinderbox files. What is obvious is that it’s best to start simple unless the whole project is already laid out in your mind. Things change, things develop, much like hypertext story. You don’t want to be redoing and rearranging once a project is already sprawling out. It’s much easier to let the project ask for its own changes when it senses a modification is necessary. Oh, of course I don’t mean Tinderbox talks (not yet anyway!) but it does present a visual that makes it easier to identify where something can be arranged in a more structured manner, or is growing lopsided and needs division like a lily clump.  It’s obvious here that I seem to be writing more stories on relationships. That may need to be separated into more defined areas of human relationships. Unless that’s not politically correct…

Okay, so there are only five stories written so far but the pattern of themes has already started to establish itself:

In first level writing and literature, we’re taught the dearth of plots and the general concept of “man versus man,” etc. What I think this series of summer stories may be based upon is struggle and the adversary determines the “type” of story, here separated by color and Adornment names of Self, Relationships, and Society.

There may naturally be additions made as time goes on, as a theme such as war, for example, may go under any of these but just might call for a new category such as Event, or Future, etc. Tinderbox allows for building into a cohesive whole and though I’m just beginning, I’m hoping that something doesn’t strike me halfway through as a better organizational layout. Things can always be changed, but not without a bit of effort, so I might just put some more time into planning at this early stage of the game.

(NOTE: Realized that this will not be published until May so I’m making the images really small so as not to take away from the originals)

It occurred to me during last summer’s 100 Days Project that my tendency to work with Tinderbox in its Map View rather than Outline, Tree, etc. became an integral part of a story as I wrote. The visual effect of a narrative, as a writer, was not something I consider other than for imagery in the writing process whether it be poem or story and yet Dorothee Lang, of the Blue Print Review and Karyn Eisler, whom I’d met on this project, made that link.

Dorothee had emailed me about an idea for a hypertext poem she was working on, and with my Tinderbox program, I showed her how it would look in that format. From there and in working with Karyn, she layered the images and text into a piece that included the Map View and submitted it to the e-zine, otoliths, which accepted and will be publishing it next month in their journal.

Yes, it’s coming slow, but I’m getting there a bit at a time as I add in the stories, poems, hypertexts, and the venues and all the information that ties in with the submissions. Today, thanks to Mark Bernstein at Eastgate, I learned how to color code the links to distinguish which way they’re going (submit versus accept/reject) so that I can see what’s out where at any given time.

I’m also afraid to go too far into it without planning exactly what I want to do about the setup. For example, while I now have a single note for a story I might want to put the story in the note itself so that I can then have the agents to do a word count sort, or genre sort, etc., as well as have the information as to where it’s been sent (the magazine as a link). Same thing with the magazines; it might be good to have the information as to what I’ve sent there separate from the submission guidelines. So there might be two notes inside a note. This is where I’ve got to spend the time planning it out.  But here’s the latest map of the Literary Endeavors project:

Here’s the latest version of Literary Endeavors, with the Poems set up and the Print Journals transferred from a Container to an Adornment. Couple things learned the hard way: If you overlap an Adornment onto another, you’ve got a holy mess on your hands because they become attached and move together, leaving the notes behind. Worked my way out of it, but not a happy sight as you move things around and the situation gets worse. But that’s what the “Save” feature is for.

Obviously, planning ahead for size when you want something that needs to all be displayed at once (another reason for keeping them out of Containers and using Adornments) is an important point. Particularly when you know you will be adding lots of notes on an adornment. I should have minimized the view right away and spread the Adornments to fit at that point, geared towards a horizontal screen.

As far as links, all I have so far is the (blush!) published ones in so far but I’m planning for the submitted and accepted/rejected return links as soon as I resize my layout.