STORYSPACE: Trying to Loop the Linear
Pursuant to my prior post on ‘diagramming a story’, I did indeed put Jumper Down by Don Shea (Flash Fiction Forward) into the Storyspace workspace. It of course, came out as a straight line of linked boxes. One thing I was able to accomplish was to describe and label the critical parts of exposition, setting, foreshadowing, conflict, climax and afterglow or resolution.
What I had thought I might have been able to accomplish was to take out the backstory by linking it out as ‘not vital’ to the action of the story, or its linearity. I’m not so sure I can do this.
It may be that the story is so brief–and yet, that shouldn’t have anything to do with it. While I can do the breakdown of parts or plot points, there may be no real way of making a traditional linear narrative fit comfortably into a hypertext world.
More work to be done on this before I come to a conclusion.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology