HYPERTEXT: Practice does help
I’ve likely learned more about hypertext link negotiation with the seven short stories I’ve worked on in the past few days than I’ve learned in writing more sprawled out, trying-too-hard-to-be-complex stories of the past couple years.
One of the clouds that hangs over my head in writing hypertext is the same one that rains on my hypertext reading; that I’ll get lost or lead someone else into a hole or that I’ll run them around in boring circles of reading the same thing over and over again. With the short short form, it makes so much more of an impact when you come around to the same writing space again. There isn’t the fear of losing the main story line even when I’ve gone off the beaten track completely with these.
Steve Ersinghaus and I have done some of this kind of thinking before–emails that we sent back and forth, each adding a new plot or elaboration on a single story, though it was somewhat linear in form. Perhaps the collaboration of two minds working together but never working the same was the key there. Can’t wait to get this show of the 100 Stories Project going and with the addition of three more people and sight and sound and organization, it should be awesome.
In the meantime, I’m practicing my hypertext. Only problem is I need more short stories to hypertexturize.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology