For goodness’ sake I didn’t realize that I could make different shapes and all kinds of good stuff with the plain little note boxes in Tinderbox.
Hot damn.
These hypertext-a-day stories are going to take me three times as long now; I just had to play with color for the actual finished export before I got down to the business of narrative, linking, and mapping. Looks like I may be running behind.
Well this one turned out to be much different than what I imagined. (Which of course means that I’ll likely tinker with it some more until the next story’s due.)
What I absorbed from Steve’s offering today was the theme of cause and effect. Almost immediately after that thought settled in, I had the story concept of three cars traveling a highway in rush hour. From there, I got a feel for their drivers and wrote up the first lexias. Then I couldn’t get to the map fast enough; it had to be a pyramid with the options and outcomes based on split-second decisions.
What came out of this as you can see from the map (don’t be scared, Mary Ellen!) was a whole lot of action and possibilities. I went overboard with linking and just a few minutes ago tried this out for the first time, worried that a reader could get lost in this hypertext and never come out. Somehow, I got out in five or six steps.
Hypertext narrative will always amaze me.
This was another big change in planning for hypertext story–as well as a new map that allows me to see what the spaces hold, and that’s a big help in this process.
What inspired this story was a change in point of view, making it a two-sided story that gave me a feel for the enemy. I also wanted to keep it short so there are minimal spaces and yet for the easily aggravated, this one can go on for quite a while with repetitious reading that hopefully sheds some moonlight on the characters.
As an aside, while I haven’t done much of the ‘horror’ genre lately, it’s the only thing I wrote when I started writing many years ago. This was a fun attempt to rekindle that dark side of soul.
This one was the perfect concept for a hypertext with five friends and five objects. It was also a good illustration of character wanting something and needing to give up something in order to gain. Unfortunately, timewise I haven’t been able to plan the elaborate framework of loops and linking that would show off the hypertext format to its greatest possibilities.
So this has been an exercise in concept only for me and will need another attempt with another story perhaps to develop the narrative element of desire and fulfillment and ends up being a rather easy hypertext reading for the initiate and likely a boring one for the involved. The map sort of looks like a boat though, doesn’t it?
Strangely enough, if I find focus on a particular narrative element, I’ve been mapping the notes out in Tinderbox even before the story is formed. Don’tcha love the arc?
This one is for hypertext fraidy-cats; you cannot get lost, you will not be sent directly to jail. If you take a sidetrail you’ll be plopped safely (and more knowledgeably) back onto Main Street until you reach the end of the story. If you do not take a sidetrail, you’ll just miss out on a bit of fun. No problem; it’s a gloomy day here too.
I’ve put together a hypertext piece connecting all the artists to each other and to their individual websites as:
C’mon–this is one hypertext you’ll enjoy!
This was a bit of fun and a bit of exploration. Inspired both by Steve’s story, The Point, that reminded me of Flatland (and thus the primary colors of the hypertext presentation) and the question of dimension (or so I understood it to be) and by James Revillini’s offering for Day #8 #20090529 that you just gotta check out and I’ve just gotta learn how to do. I could use this concept in the hypertexts as a bit of visual movement that could be an exciting addition.
And really, that’s all they can be for to list strict rules as to how to read a hypertext would be at crosspurposes to its intent, that of granting the reader the freedom of choice and flexibility of creating a unique and individual narrative out of a poor author’s offerings.
In response to one request, I gave the following reply:
“( . . . ) a couple things that I do is 1) first read the entire writing space (page or box) before wandering off. 2) decide between or among the links by keeping a couple things in mind. In most hypertexts, just clicking on the bottom of the box will bring you to the next box/space in a fairly linear storyline. In mine [here online], the last word in the box that is text-linked is usually what will bring you to the next linear space. Text links anywhere else within the writing space usually are a sidetrail that relates to that word or concept within the sentence. 3) With the online hypertexts, you have an additional choice that is a valuable tool; your browser toolbar arrow to go back to the previous page (just as you would go back in your browser). I use this when I land someplace I don’t particularly like and want to return to a writing space that made me feel more comfortable and had another link choiceavailable.
“( . . . ) If you want to play with one, try #7Schematica; it is the simplest layout and if you look at the map (a bigger version available in the next post after it) you’ll see the logic. Maybe.
If I’ve mastered the technique of hypertext narrative, then even if the links do not seem to always make sense (think poetry, think exploration and the natural wandering of thought patterns), the sum total of the links followed should present a satisfactory story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
If not, well I’m still new at this too!
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology