100 DAYS PROJECT: #37
Love and War
What I liked about Steve’s story today was the obvious man against self conflict; an internal struggle between two loyalties. It is likely the hardest fighting we ever do, when our beliefs and faith are challenged by contradictory forces.
I’ve tried to follow that pattern of conflict, but in hypertext, and with my own introduction of two characters, I may have overplayed the point. But also in hypertext, there is the option of following one thread that may show you only one side of the story, but should still give a story. I have taken advantage of switching points of view here, something that is more common in hypertext because of its nature, but also used the traditional method of changing typeface to italic for the third person pov besides the positioning of the spaces.
The mapping of this one, just as in the previous, allows switching paths up to a point when the fate of the characters have been decided by the reader. Though of course, there’s always another way of reading the story. ; )
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
June 27th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Wow, this could be a continuation of “Twelve Noon”. It has the same feel of the unknown and the fear these women feel for their men and of the society they live in. This one’s a tad more hopeful, but only barely. I also liked the prey/pray dichotomy. Does religion help?
June 28th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Not if you’re the prey, I guess.
Yes, I had Twelve Noon characters bothering me while I was writing this, giving me trouble with maintaining the voice of the 1st person pov here. I reminded them they were dead.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:40 am
It’s that gappy thing. There’s more to the story yet.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:29 am
There’s always more to the story–and there should be. Hypertext, by the suspicion (I could say knowledge, but that’s not necessarily so, depending on what the writer has presented in the linkage) that something is possibly being “missed” invites a second reading, a third, a fourth.
As does traditional story. I often found myself rereading a story (short ones, not long pieces or novels) a couple times, or at least portions (there’s that hypertext element again) of it long after I’ve had to for academic purposes in writing papers.
This really needs a longer, likely an in-person discussion. Maybe we’ll resurrect the Narratives for a day!
BTW, Mark Bernstein is putting out a book called “Reading Hypertext” with chapters written by some of the best in the field. I’ve already got my copy on order: Reading Hypertext