STORYSPACE: ?(n)
Yeah sure, you find some new trick and you just have to play with it.
The code in Storyspace ?(n) signals the program to follow a path at random with other paths in a cycle of reading. Which means, if you’ve only read through that area once, you haven’t seen the others and ya can’t get there from here–unless you go back to the writing space that forked out into these random trails.
So I’ve used this code two or three, maybe four times in Paths. I like it. But then again, I know all the other paths because I wrote ’em so I’m not missing anything. How do I feel about the readers missing them then? How did I feel after reading Michael Joyce’s Afternoon, A Story thinking that I lost out on a good portion of story because I’m directionally dysfunctional? I know I didn’t miss a Writing Space of Steve Ersinghaus’ The Life of Geronimo Sandoval because I had a system established, a pattern of read to the end of the space, check out the links (if any) in order, follow to a point, retrace my steps, etc.
I guess it need all be left in the hands of the reader, once it’s out of the hands of the writer, to walk the straight and narrow, wander off the trail, take the shortcuts, ignore the signs. Hypertext story may be as much prone to driving habits as to those of reading.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology