Hypercompendia

Challenge and Response

I quit halfway through my hypertext offering today to come up with perhaps the shortest hypertext story ever.

I’ve gone back and made some remarks on the recent pieces that I was just too cranky to do at the time. On this one, which started off my Nasty Susan reign, was indeed the result of an “oh f..k it” moment. However, some of the most interesting developments come of such times.

This two-lexia, three-word hypertext is indeed a story. It can go on for a while, or it can end at any time. What’s interesting to me is that without the “Back to Start” and “Back to Home” links, and with the no-change in “visited” link color to designate it as such, the reader’s decision to “end” the story is coincidental to the ending of the argument that makes up the story. The reader then becoming a character (or both, perhaps, if the decision is mutual) within the story.

Or maybe I’m just full of it.

Choosing Sides

I’m not sure any more where I tied this in with Steve’s story of a metaphorical government (or society itself for that matter) but what developed was not so much story as an interesting experiment for me in hypertext structure.

From the map you can see that it is a block style grid pattern with each lexia taking a right turn or down turn only. What this does is eliminate any loops or going around while offering many different paths between the first and last writing spaces. What this meant to me as a writer was that I could come up with many different middles, or I could find different ways of saying the same thing with this particular pattern.

The story is of a man unused to social intercourse going out on his first date with a beautiful woman with a single quirk in her appearance. Not earth shattering, but a nice simple story for this hypertext exercise.

Symptomonium

This one’s just a fun thing, though it may not seem that way and maybe it’s not at all for kids.

It always seems that right after I write what I consider is maybe one of my better stories that what follows is a failure to let go and enter into a new storyworld. Because I know what it was like to force a story out of thin air I just jumped on whatever came out of reading Steve’s story. For me, it was the bit of silliness, the bit of unbelievability and the books. Earl developed and I just spent the day following him around.

Cherry Soda

This one took a while coming out. It came of memories that are only sensations. It came of experience that altered memories to see the other point of view. From Steve’s reality-horror story The Skeletons this story came from children and the grownups they become–though I’m not sure that a bit of child is not retained within our souls until the last breaths are drawn.

The map follows a previous format of allowing a short, quick story or one that includes any of several insightful additions. Some things may sound familiar to the elder or the younger child/reader. For me, it was ginger ale.

A Certain Dreamlike Quality

What I originally pulled from Steve’s story this morning was the dreamlike narrative voice and oddness that cannot be questioned if–and that’s a question for the reader to decide–the story is to be believed. It turned into something quite a bit different, though the reader must also decide how much is dream and how much is reality, or surreality for that matter.

Not a lot of linkage here, purposely planned so that the story’s pace moves a bit quicker without losing the odd sense of slow motion that dreams can take on.

Obedience

The concept for this story came immediately even though it didn’t play itself out. Unfortunately, by the third writing space I’d realized it was too Psycho-similar. Changing characters midstream isn’t the easiest thing. With suggestions for an alien invasion or a Frenchman, I still wasn’t getting a grip. What finally helped produce a breakthrough if not a stellar story was a talking gerbil.

I’m learning that as one writes in hypertext, one knows where he’d like the reader to go back and not miss out on some interesting information. A writer doesn’t have to lead the reader too insistently, but rather give him second chances at a go-around that may take him on a different path. Don’t know if I’ll ever feel up to a hypertext novel after this project is done, but I know I’ve learned much about storytelling and about the hypertext form.

Colorless

What started out as a mystery became instead an oddly surrealistic look at relationships. Or maybe it’s the product of a mind twisted by the hot August day.

The map is once again geared towards a brief story with the optional depth that comes from taking chances on link choices or as is often preferable, even with straight text, rereading.

Central Processing Unit

Well I stuck pretty faithfully to Steve’s concept of a world where what we are is what we’re expected to be and produce faithfully by a society slightly twisted by time.

I chose to work with a writer and named the bad guy as ‘the feds’ just because it happened that way. I was also able to draw a bit on my experience with daily deadlines and the push to produce, though fortunately, without the dire consequences that the protagonist faces should he fall short of standards.

There are several separate versions of story here, probably a dozen or so. Each story is very short, eight lexias tops I believe. And, there are two different endings based on your choice of path. I enjoyed writing this one. I kind of like how it came out.

Smile

I hooked up with the concept of a world where cameras watched every citizen, every move, Big government, Big Brother style. 1984 was a fantasy. But fiction often affects history when it’s too horrible to comprehend and at best, wards off the inevitable for a while.

Look at it this way; we’re twenty-five years behind schedule.

The map parallels somewhat simultaneous events–as recording equipment is purposed to achieve. There are enough backtracks to visit both places and follow the separate spaces of character activity with four different intersection points that act as roadsigns.

Rooms

This started out to be another IF Text Adventure style hypertext, but once I found that the rooms of the house wanted to tell the story their own way, well, I just let them.

Steve told a very interesting story about a young couple and a strange elusive scratching sound they hear one night. From this, I let the house speak for itself.

There is a way out but you might be stuck going around in circles through the rooms of the house for a while. Much like the children in the story who used to chase gleefully through them. But that was a long time ago.