STORYSPACE: Link Structure (Updated w/Corrections)
Been reading some of the hypertext fictions available at the library and am studying the mapping structures to understand the method behind the madness. While I’ve gotten away a bit from guard fields, there are some very interesting uses of the tool in these earlier hypertexts.
For example, in (oopsie, I forgot and gotta find it) J. Yellowlees Douglas’ I Have Said Nothing, one of the spaces entitled What? We could also say shows the following link possibilities:
SpaceLink: Goes to: Guard Field:>What? If that’s so>What? But does it stop?What? But does it stop? "If that’s so"
None of these are text links so they are basic space to space. So what this allows then is a link from What? to If that’s so as the default link procession. Since there is no text link, there is no further option for the reader. On the second link of But does it stop?, in the first instance I’m not sure how this works since there is no rotational indication. On the third link of But does it stop?, the guard field of If that’s so indicates that the link will follow this path if If that’s so has already been visited. Therefore, I assume that this will happen when a link is coming into What? from a direction other than the default sequence of x to What? to If that’s so.
I hadn’t thought of this. What I had been doing when I came into a space from a different direction and wanted just a single step onto that path I’d use the link previous to it as the guard field. Another thing to keep in mind is what portion of the story is likely to have been read first.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
January 11th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I think perhaps you’ve listed the links out of order. The way I suspect this is meant to work is:
a) If you have visited “If that’s so”, you always go to “But does it stop?”
b) Otherwise, you go to “If that’s so”
The third basic link to “But does it stop?” might be an editing scar — never followed, but left over from some older version.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Thanks, Mark. I did find it: the writing space is named “We could also say” and it is set up as I have it except that the first two links have the > sign. In any event, it does work as you say.
There’s some intricate linking in this piece and it could teach me much in hypertext planning.