Hypercompendia

Thought I’d point to an interview I recently did over at Fictionaut about hypertext and new media in general. I had formed a Hypertext Group within this online writers colony and am thrilled to encourage interest and find a receptive and curious audience there.

At Facebook there is some commentary between myself and Finnegan Flawnt, who just recently started playing with the Tinderbox program, that entertains the question of new media being metafictional by nature. It is worth thinking about, if perhaps even the simplest hypertext is in fact calling attention to the act of writing by its visual invitation to interact with the text.

We’ve gotten used to seeing text as thoughts and read them not as signs and symbolic marks upon a background (think of looking at a page of Chinese writing when you can’t read the language), but see the idea presented in the pattern formed by the letters. Possibly seeing beyond the words and sentences to the images they represent. Hypertext includes links within text of a different and obvious color that is saying something about the text itself and the process of reading it, rather than merely being a part of the story. It’s talking directly to the reader. It’s an interesting way of looking at new media, particularly when it includes audio and visual effects that further call attention to the experience. Is it screaming, louder than the story it presents, “Look at me, I’m a story!”?

Every now and then Chris Crawford’s Storytron comes back to mind and it’s what I thought of this morning when I ran into this note on my newsfeed on a game called “Spirited Heart.”

Spirited Heart is a fantasy life sim game. You’ll be able to create your alter ego choosing from 3 races: Human, Elf and Demon. Each race has different starting attributes, and unique dialogues and events, so if you play with a different race you’ll see different in-game situations.

You can see where I mentally linked the this with Storytron, in the mention of “Each race has different starting attributes” so that events will play out according to certain predetermined conditions that need to align. I’m sure this is nowhere near as calculated and intricate as Crawford’s work which he and his team have put years of effort and intelligence into.

Time perhaps for me to revisit Storytron and other exciting ventures such as Facade that are at the forefront of new discoveries in gaming and new media.

In this case, methods of working up funding for a project that someone may feel passionate about but can’t get others interested in backing.

Led by the notorious Anne (who has more skills at tunneling through the web than a mole underground) to Kickstarter, which seems to be a place to lay out your idea and hope for some promises of dollars to help you get started. This one, for example, caught my eye because it’s so close to what I took part in with the 100 Days Project: 50 Characters in 50 Weeks, spiels the maker, is,

“…an exploration of humanity. It’s an exploration of acting and storytelling, but also of what it is to be human. There are lots of laughs, there are some tears. There are nice people and mean ones, but none of them are two-dimensional. Each film is designed to transport you, to make you laugh, think, and feel, if only for a few minutes… and I’m trying to create fifty of them in a year.”

Hi, my name is Brent Rose. I’m an actor, writer, and film-maker, and I’m working on the toughest project of my life. I am trying to create fifty short films in under a year. The project is called 50 Characters in 50 Weeks (or “50in50″).

An ambitious endeavor, and as of this moment, he’s got $1748 collected with 44 backers and 26 days to go.

What then, can I promise in return for some cash to fund CD’s and a website on hypertext stories? This is a possibility to get this project off the ground, not just for the money–which would take it above the personally-funded hokey stage to a more professional level–but for the chance to generate interest in the hypertext medium.

Ach, more thinking to do.

It’s no good; I can’t just transfer the damn thing into html and make it any better with color and fancy design. It’d be like putting the cardboard back behind a work of art in a frame. Just don’t have it in me to cut the wrong corners when it counts.

So that’s what’s holding me up right now–as well as keeping me busy while I wait for more hypertext story–editing the somewhat sloppy language in Paths that I thought was so great at the time. That, and trying to figure out how to get the image of Jesus Christ from showing up as the representative frame of Recycling on You-Tube. No offense or sacrilegious intent meant, but He’s scaring readers away.

Even as I settle myself in for a nice hypertext write, I wonder where it all is going. Even I still have some dislikes of the medium in the reading of it, but then, there’ve been quite a few changes incorporated into hypertext work now. Even as I write in it I need these ‘changes’ to keep the groove, namely, to see the visual presentation and that for me usually means some color if not graphics.

This is also likely why I’ve still not bothered to master interactive fiction, as in the old text-interplay of Photopia, et al. It’s not visually exciting. Particularly when seeing “There’s no such thing” a few zillion times (I happen to be certified directionally dysfunctional). When I first got into IF and then hypertext via Storyspace, my mind zoomed ahead to a combination of the two–never the concept of IF alone–and with images and sound as well.

Now I’m not quite a senior citizen but I’ve been raised in the era of television at least, so I’m used to the visual saturation of the senses–though books were still a big, big part of my list to Santa. It makes one wonder how the younger generations, brought up on laptops rather than mere laps in a rocking chair, feel about these forms of story when they can get film clips on their phones for goodness’ sake.

A couple of years ago I played around a bit with Chris Crawford’s Storytron, in beta form, more on the authoring side of things than on the reading and playing of the prepared story.  At that time, unless my mind is deceiving me, there was a very promising graphical interface that was highly sophisticated to go along with the program. When I checked out Storytron in the last couple of days after its launch of a fully useable program, I was surprised to see the same old Sponge Bob Square Pants figures (faces?) in the play areas.  While Storytron is sort of halfway between IF in its decisions and hypertext in its manual use of clicking menus, it doesn’t do much in the way of eye-appeal. Same thing with the promise of Facade, which hasn’t progressed any from its intial output and primitive visuals.  Why are some of these great concepts not really accepted by a much wider audience?  Somehow I believe it has something to do with needing to look as exciting and interesting as the content should certainly be.

Like I said, I may often opt for the classics in their physical text and creamy-paged form and a quiet corner with a soft-cushioned curl-up-type chair, but I still have come to expect some visual stimulation when it’s just my Mac and me. In this hungry-eyed era I would think that aside from story and good solid writing another major consideration needs to be presentation.

Well I guess the answer to which medium of text is more enduring has been answered. Via J-Walk, this photo of a book is priceless. I’d love to see this done in animation too.

Excited for Chris and the crew from Storytron on their official launch the other day of the Storytron World. (You find out the greatest news via twitter!).

I’m putting this one on the agenda to play with as soon as I can. I did some work in it a while ago but I wasn’t really quite new media savvy or geared to the style so I’m sure it’ll be a lot more interesting and fun next time around.

Congratulations folks on a dream turned reality!

It’s nice to see that since many literary journals have gone online they are now opening themselves up to the new media methods of telling story.

At Narratives, Eliza Frye’s Horse & Rider, Part One, is a winner in the story contest. Though the cover art looks rather kinky, it’s fairly straightforward in story. Frye also has more stories available for reading, and at the Narratives site,  the work of other artist/writers as well.

As the news media is learning too, when life hands you lemons you make lemonade. It’s just another turn of the wheel of civilization and we all either adjust, or walk.

Very good advice from A List Apart this morning on “The Elegance of Imperfection.”

“It symbolizes a crucial lesson about craft: utility is not contingent on perfection of form.”

Even as I fight back the urge to twiddle and tweak till I’m left with a toothpick of story from a oak tree of words, I do realize that editing and going that one step further does most often improve upon form. Utility is fine, but I still can’t help but seek perfection–perhaps as a balance to more natural impulsive instincts.

In working on the 100 Stories Project (which I really shouldn’t be doing, I suppose, until the official start date), I’m playing with colors to stay on track with the project as a whole. It is important, of course, to have something set up prior to the opening bell since there won’t be time later to play when deadlines to produce are more important, but after practicing the hypertext, I had to play with the display. And, after two major rehauls in display just to find something inspiring to write in, there’s still that urge to look further to come up with the perfect playground. In checking out the suggested site, Kular, for color theme, I found this that I do like a lot:

In changing the css color values on a test, I neglected to change the headline colors from a lovely navy and while the values above came out subtle and soft, the navy text fairly popped with class.

Then, of course, there’s thousands of color combinations and I’ll have to explore further before I go changing things again. But the above–with navy text–may show up somewhere someday soon. Like maybe at the Spinning site that’s gotten boring for me.

Tale of Tales is launching The Path in San Francisco today. I’ve looked at the trailer and screenshots of this short game and it looks exciting. The graphics are fantastic as evidenced just by this site image below: