Hypercompendia

Before CW class last night I was talking with a friend about his brand new adventure into weblogging and we discussed the definite difference a writer notices in putting words into the bordered area of a posting box, filling it with text.  I told him about Storyspace, and how you fill smaller boxes with story, and how one box leads to another, broken naturally into pauses for effect, just as paragraphs.

This morning while working on The Hanging I realized something that enforces Steve Ersinghaus’ notion of each Writing Space being necessarily a separate entitity–if well written, a poem–that can stand alone but works better with another Writing Space (much like my reasoning behind marriage!).  I’ve just spent a good half hour on the text below which was written several days ago and while it’s still not finished, it is obvious that taken out of context of the story, blanking out what comes before and after, the focus is on the language used, polishing as one would a poem to make it as concise and lyrical as it can be.

This particular snippet isn’t particularly poetic, but then neither is the scenario.  And it’s still a far cry from what it could be to establish its impact.  But, word by word, forced to focus on this block of story only, it is changing, has changed from simple relation of events, into approaching the drama of the moment.  Storyspace, with its breaking up a narrative into sections, encourages close reading.  This is terrific for the writer; should be kept in mind as well that the reader may also experience this influence, meaning that the writing should shine, without, of course, impeding the flow of story or discouraging the need to click onward.