Hypercompendia

So here I am, right? I’m going through the Hypercompendia postings to grab some of the magic experienced in writing my first story into Storyspace, started back in November of ’07.  So I’m going along, filtering through scanning-type reading and copying & pasting those passages that seem vital to the feeling and the writing process as it changes.

I’ve got 20 pages so far of single-spaced entries.  I’m halfway through November.

Now I know that the purpose of this is just to jog my memory of the enjoyment of it all, but some of these postings are just so great because in sequence, they show the jubilation as clearly as the frustration of the writer. Then you throw in the change she is undergoing with the learning process of the hypertext environment, and well, you’ve got yourself a nice fat book here.

Good Grief!  Did I say book?

Thing is, either I get busy and brutal with the blade and leave the key points of the issue, or someone’s going to have to bring a hook with him to get me off the podium.   

Maybe I just won’t leave time for questions. Besides, all the audience will really want to know is why I hate small children…

Google search, clear and plaintive:  what is hypertext.  It lands them here, where if they spend some time and look through the posts and links, they can find some sort of answer.  And yet, there is an obvious need for a center of operations, much as we have started to establish in a wiki form recently and a place that leads to all the resources available so that the information is disseminated in all its aspects.

This post then is an attempt to lead those who are plopped down by the Great Goggle God into my world and need to settle into it deeper.  For starters:

Storyspace

Serious Hypertext

Hypertext Fiction

Hypertextopia

Mark Bernstein

Steve Ersinghaus

Charles Deemer

Tinderbox

ELO

Nick Montfort

Gimcrack’d

Literatronic

Hypertext Now

I’ll amend and add to this post if there are more that should be
here–and there are–as even though the sidebar holds the links, Google
Ploppers need to be directed to this post in particular I think, thus,
the title.  I know that when I land on a weblog in a search and the
first few posts are not directly relevant to my query, I leave
uninformed.

I’ve been working on a presentation for a workshop at Hypertext 08 (that is, if they let me in with my credentials and lack thereof) and have decided on Keynote for a visual portion that can probably implement the Storyspace and Hypertextopia pieces as well as the old .doc formatting that I’ve exported into .pdf.

Need to focus on a small portion of the ideas that have come up since I started writing into hypertext and that’s been the hardest part: to lose a lot of the Ahah! and Omigod! excitement that is not directly relevant to the point of how a writer changes style and thinking by working into the hypertext environment.

Of course, it’s all a matter of editing, editing and more editing to cut out the sidetracks.  Oh…that’s in direct contrast to the hypertext way, no?  LOL, a linear presentation to describe hypertext!  But then an interesting thought intervenes: by allowing a Q&A portion of time, the questions that one would answer spontaneously in hypertext format, can produce a more interesting mapping of the presentation at its end.

Hypertext is indeed only one vehicle for transporting a reader
through a story.  Pencil and paper, typewriter, paper, computer,
software, as well as dance, song, ears, mouth, are all methods to
travel.

I’m finding some very interesting things out about  K’s use of
Hypertextopia.  For one thing, she’s maneuvered it to work in more of a
paths form, as Storyspace would offer.  While I haven’t seen that all
the paths connect to many of the lines of thought but go through to the
end, there is a very interesting concept at the end: It goes back and
forth as if giving a choice to the reader as to where they choose to
let it end.  There is also an intriguing thought: that of the stories
being short, separated by the author for that very point.

(This is a duplicate of a posting at CW, a course log that nobody reads)

Okay, so I wandered off into spring cleaning once the potato salad was done…

In reading K’s piece in Hypertextopia, and after reading a short story she’d written in traditional form, I see the same sense of short sentence structure that punctuates her style and yet in the hypertext the sentences are statements, self contained and complete.  In the linear format, they are emphasizing an idea or event in staccato repetition. 

The hypertext statements are separated by a decision on the reader’s part to go a step further, sometimes being given a choice in direction.  This separation based on reader choice would seem to ask for as much information and direction to make an informed decision.  Yet, the opposite appears to be more effective; the less information obtained, the further the reader wishes to travel, even with an amount of risk involved of losing the trail.

Interesting concept.  One that would ask something more than trust from the reader; rather, one that would request abandonment of the bookmark.

I have a clear advantage in discovering the change to writing style encountered by the writer in that I currently have not only my own writing to analyze but that of a fellow student in Steve Ersinghaus’ current Creative Writing session.  We introduced both Storyspace and Hypertextopia to the class and I was happy to see that at least one student was bold enough to ‘hypertest’, that is, try out hypertext writing for herself.  The best part is that this particular student has two pieces simultaneously up for workshop this week. 

In reading first through the linear narrative story, I do find a bit of ‘dead space’ that could be edited out without losing the flow, and yet there seems to be a need for the transition in time and character to eliminate the possibility of a choppy reading.

The hypertext piece does allow for that choppiness–and yet, you know, it’s more lyrical in its concise statements per text box.

(gotta get back to this–the eggs and potatoes are boiling over!)

I’m finding much in Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler that specifically is geared towards the hypertext medium and so certain of the postings from Spinning’s literary commentary will be duplicated here.

We are in the center of a discussion regarding the Reader and the
Other Reader and their eventual intimacy, thus bringing them together
just as has the reading of a novel.  Calvino here notes the differences
in reading and the act of sex, and yet in the hypertext format, the
difference is nearly eliminated.  In fact, this passage brings to mind
Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl.

Lovers’
reading of each other’s bodies (of that concentrate of mind and body
which lovers use to go to bed together) differs from the reading of
written pages in that it is not linear.  It starts at any point, skips,
repeats itself, goes awkward, insists, ramifies in simultaneous
divergent messages, converges again, has moments of irritation, turns
the page, finds its place, gets lost.  A direction can be recognized in
it, a route to an end, since it tends toward a climax, and with this
end in view it arranges rhythmic phases, metrical scnasions, recurrence
of motives.  But is the climax really the end? Or is the race toward
that end opposed by another drive which works in the opposite
direction, swimming against the moments, recovering time?  (p. 156)

In
Hypertext, there is a ‘whole’ of narrative that is made up of bits of
data or information that may or may not be necessary to the full
understanding or enjoyment of the story.  Similar to the familiar
‘maybe she liked that but I sure as hell don’t’ with learning of what
turns a particular person on sexually. A tweak that doesn’t work may be
a metaphor that grants insight that only few will find meaningful. 

As an aside, I love the way Calvino uses language that suits what he is saying, i.e., "rhythmic phases."

I found this particularly interesting: "But is the climax really the end?"

What better said description of the first reading of a hypertext
piece?  I know I always find myself wondering what I’ve missed, what
wrong turns I’ve made (we’re talking about hypertext here!) and if I
have come out of the story with the same sense of satisfaction (or
dissatisfaction) had I taken an alternate route.  Am I judging what
I’ve held as the meaning of the story with knowledge of all data
necessary to come up with an honestly based conclusion?

The neat part of hypertext then, is that like sex, you want to go back and do it again.

Just a link to a morning post on Spinning regarding Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler. 

I would hope that this novel is being used to advantage in university Creative Writing courses as both a single-text study of writing and an introduction to hypertext.

I’ve started reading N. Katherine Hayles’ Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary and am wondering if I shouldn’t perhaps complete a presentation on hypertext from an author’s viewpoint before continuing.  The reasoning being that I feel I am being told how to look at hypertext and that this may taint my own recall of my experience; experience, that is, of being inexperienced about the medium and jumping into it as a writer rather than already having had a full comprehension of all aspects of the medium.

That said, I’ve already found myself in some disagreement with the more knowledgeable view.  Hayes states:

Electronic literature, generally considered to exclude print literature that has been digitized, is by contrast "digital born," a first-generation digital object created on a computer and (usually) meant to be read on a computer.  (p. 3)

Well, I would think that appears to exclude any version of the work produceable in print form, and yet, in most cases, a work has been "born" on a computer–versus pen and paper or typewriter that produces a physical version as it is being created. This concept might also include anything produced in hard copy form and transferred into ‘hard drive’ format.

But then Hayes goes on to offer the ELO accepted definition:

The committee’s formulation reads: "work with an important literary aspect that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer."

She admits that this definition as well raises questions and perhaps by deeming hypertext as "hybrid" we can arrive at some resolution that at the very least, keeps the concept open–a nice and appropriate way to describe hypertext.

Finally signed up for this and am reading Extreme Conditions by Juan B. Gutierrez. Literatronica offers a different style of hypertext, wherein the reader follows by making defined choices page by page. He is offered three separate paths at the end of each page of story, and here there is a brief description of where that trail may lead.  This is not the case with hypertext normally where the specific text link may give a hint as to what the link will be relating to, but it is not always the case.  It’s sort of blind guessing on the part of the reader until he discovers a pattern or style particular to the author and to the piece.

More on this in a bit; I’m only 6% into the story right now.  The good thing with the signup is that you can signout and return to the spot in the narrative where you left off when you sign back in.