STORYSPACE: Hypertext Motive
In seeking the best options of maneuvering through a hypertext piece, and keeping with the original intent of this body of work (Paths) I’m learning to study the tools available in Storyspace to see not only what I can do, but if I can do what I want. One thought process leads to another and another and gee, that’s just like hypertexting, isn’t it…
This thought came up: what if, seeing that there are four or five separate threads, that at a junction or crossover of two paths, the reader would be allowed to make an informed choice as to where he would like to wander?
In the hypertext scenario (from what I’ve experienced so far, and this idea may be implemented already in someone’s work of fiction; I know the concept is in action in non-fiction and websites), the reader usually only knows that clicking on a link will bring him some information relative to the text that offers the option. What if the reader is given the additional information of where he is likely to go when he chooses to click on a link? What harm in either numbering or color-coding a path and giving him the choice of following it further, knowing where he is and who he’s going to be exploring? What is the proper motivation for reading further: merely a link to click on, or another self-contained view from which to discover the narrative?
This is just an idea, but I think that it may actually increase reader freedom even as a more structured form is built underneath by the writer.
Something to work on today.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology