Hypercompendia

Wanted to give this a separate post because I think it’s one of the important things I’ve learned in working on the project.  In the post below, I stated, "In this, my first experience with Storyspace, I had an advantage of a narrative that was purposely set up in anticipation of a hypertext format."

Well hah! to that. While I’ve left many of the original links between the stories in the hypertext version, I can sense that while I’ve taken many of them out, many more need to go.  Basically, in writing Paths for preparation of real (versus pseudo) hypertext, I fell into the simplistic pattern of word sparking.  That’s my own term for a case of linking morning in Story #1 to morning in Story #4 and Story #3, and back again, and toes to toes, etc. 

Well I knew that Anne’s cigarette toes had no relationship to Joyce’s toes. But what I did, and I think it was partly due to a necessity of bringing some recognizable ‘word link’ into a world of paper pages that included a sea of words around toes, was latch onto that idea as a tie-in.  The stories all do relate; the characters all recalling a certain time common to all of them, and yet I had to depend on words like hair and shower and plate and corn to tie them together for the reader.  Frankly, I now look at the four stories and without the vast changes I’ve done to them via hypertext, I think they’d be better off being read #1, #2, #3, #4, bam-bam-bam, just like that, without going from toe to toe.

What this tells me in Storyspace, is that I really need to look at every one of the original links between the stories to prove them.  To make sure they create the flow of thought that hypertext allows.  To ensure they aren’t even more obviously shown up in the hypertext format as counterfeit.

I’ll end this with another example of prep work in anticipation of the real thing.  Dancing With the Stars–I love dancing, I love watching them, I don’t care what you think–Sabrina was a hip-hop dancer and it was argued that she had an unfair advantage over the other contestants who really had no dance experience.  Sabrina did extremely well.  What helped her was her dancer’s mindset and discipline.  What hurt her?  She ended up with a bit of hip-hop in her waltz. 

Unlearning is sometimes harder than learning anew. But it was a poor man’s start toward the hypertext fiction format, and if nothing else, were the first steps towards an exciting endeavor in writing.