Hypercompendia

Finally have had the nerve to sever all relationship links between the stories as they were originally set up.  It’s just too difficult to keep track of them and they’d still need the guard fields which, as I am coming to understand, aren’t used much by the pro writers.

It does seem as though the new way I’m mapping this is more restrictive–even without guard fields–because I’m setting up a more defined path through the stories.  The natural flow seems to go here, then here, then there, then a word from our sponsor, etc.  The most important change is that the reader is allowed to get a fuller view of whichever life he’s visiting since he can stay within the story for a few spaces, ramble around into it’s own offshooting links, and return to the main narrative flow.  He will also be reading a bit of each story in its proper sequence even though I will have him hopping back and forth among them.

I am allowing the reader to remain within any one story if he so chooses however.  There will be a code that can be recognized for what it is after a reader is into the narrative a bit, though it won’t be outrageously obvious.  The main followthrough, the way I would read it, will be navigated by the Writing Space Click.  For continuation of a single story, there will be a text link, though it won’t be on every Writing Space and that’s why I say it won’t become obvious immediately.  As a matter of fact, as I write this, I’m wondering if this is such a good idea since once that path is followed, it will either bring the reader to the end of that particular thread, or it will bring him back into the main trail at an odd moment, having missed a good portion of the ongoing, interwoven narrative.

Truly, while this pre-setup format of hypertext story was thought to be such a good idea, thinking back now, it would’ve been much easier to start from scratch and write hypertextually instead of thinking hypertext.