HYPERTEXT & 100 DAYS PROJECT: Weaving Patterns
This is the Tinderbox map of Hypertext #59 The Library. What I’m planning here is a sort of IF influence on the piece by incorporating a quest, or task, separating the library into rooms, and providing clues within the stories that will lead to a successful ending.
Not all that easy. If I’m writing for the IF value, I find myself sacrificing story through the language as there are instructions and descriptions to be given to the reader. If I concentrate on the story, I lose the thread that must run through to allow the reader full access to paths leading to the ultimate ending while making sure all necessary information or clues are given and accessible via several choices of path.
But here’s the fun part: I’ve discovered the key to the puzzle is language-based and while I need to figure out how the clues can be ‘taken’ as ‘inventory’ as in IF so that they will all be available no matter how or in what order they are collected. The neat part is how the puzzle, the clues, and the solving all came in a pattern that I have to work to coordinate while making the story entertaining.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology