Hypercompendia

Subtitle:  The Evil Side of Linking

Yep, I’m having fun now.  A Writing Space in Story #2 made me think that the guy’s probably cheating on his wife so I added in four more writing spaces linked from a kickoff word and then linked to each other, coming back from the fourth space to the next Writing Space in the narrative rather than returning as most of them do.  Fine, I thought, that eliminates maybe some repetition of both reading and method.

Then I realized that the original Writing Space has links coming into it from another story, and the guard field protects the reader (What, protects?  It prevents is a better word.) from entering Story #2’s path from there.  However, if the reader is curious enough to click on a the text link, he’ll follow it and be deposited into the next Writing Space, bypassing the guard field and hopelessly lost in a new world.

Heh-heh-heh.  Hey, that’s what this is supposed to be all about, no?  Curiousity and reader intelligence.

Working with "guard fields" — what serves as fencing to prevent a reader from going further along the natural path provided by a writing space and force him to back up to either a main path of story different from where you’ve led him or onto a new trail.

Sort of inconsistent with the idea of hypertext, but it’s a necessary evil or there may be no method to his reading pattern and all your patient work on story will be wasted on a wanderer to whom your story will make little sense.

Besides, it gives me the control I crave.

It would seem to me that if you placed a guard field on every writing space so that link 2-B cannot be followed until 2-A has been read, and 2-C not until 2-B, etc., then likely you’ll have covered all bases.  Particularly in this piece, Paths, there being 4 stories, whenever I’m interlinking them, say 1-A to 3-F, then most likely I’ll want to return to either 1-A or 1-B and so on the link to 3-F, the guard field would be "3-E".

Now I’m sensing that this could work more creatively if I didn’t already have four fairly linear narratives, where backstory references and the characters themselves are the connections.  It might also be a consideration to allow the reader to go a few writing spaces into another story, say three or four links’ worth, but without serious rewriting on this particular project, I’ll hold that thought for the next.

Another thought: As big a PITA as going through and doing all the guard fields after the main work has been mostly complete (I’m still getting vibes so I’m still filling writing spaces–love the little baby boxes you can make so easily–the same ones I complained about as breeding rabbits in a prior post), I’m wondering how the guard fields are created concurrently with the writing process–wouldn’t that be rather restrictive since so much is still unknown?  But going through 1000 plus links (as in Ersinghaus’ The Life of Geronimo Sandoval) as a one-time editing deal would have to be a monumentous task of concentration, patience, and an inherent sense of direction.

124 writing spaces and 177 links.  Cleaned out all the Notes.  Have gone through all four stories and checked the links–although I have not taken care of all the guard fields yet.  Some writing has to be done (just a couple of the spaces are titled to remind me what I saw and were left blank to fill in) and the writing could be polished up a bit.  Also have to make sure that they all make sense.  And, oh yes, have to remember to delete all the page number references that I left in from the text version just to ensure that I remembered to link those places if I wanted (changed or dropped most of them). 

Ran into just a couple of program quirks.  One was when I created a loop of links then led the last one to a faraway writing space within the same story.  For some reason, the program insisted it was illegal and I had to close the program and should go back to baking brownies or something.  Fixed it by eliminating the link to that writing space, but copying the text into a new writing space and linked just to that to keep it neat.

Another little thing is that the writing spaces keep popping up all over the place and often in varying sizes.  The worst part about this is that the main place they like to pop into is the upper left hand corner, which is where the floating toolbar also likes to sleep.  So I’m constantly moving one or the other out of the way, or resizing writing spaces to a consistent box.  I seem to remember something about this in the manual and I only hope that with my own fiddling I haven’t negated the coded preference.

Since I’ve decided to use the nesting concept of hierarchy, I did notice that even within the four separate stories that in pulling the children from their mother’s womb and displaying them, then the chart and outline view will show them as siblings, or on an equal level.  If I stick them back in, then the chart and outline views look nice, but the map view is rather linear.  Which brings me to the next item.

In working in map view (can’t break the habit) I arranged the writing spaces horizontally, alternating one higher, one lower, just so they’d fit easy under 75% view (where the text is still readable).  Chart and outline views must pick that up as whoever’s highest vertically since when the kids were pulled out on top or bottom of their parent boxes, they were listed first on the charts.  In other words, the chart does not follow the flow.  So that I’ll have to rearrange too.

I’m enjoying the working environment of Storyspace (aside from those little quirks–but that’s mostly me, and they didn’t design the program for me, I’m supposed to learn how to manipulate the program) and I’m learning to do things automatically without thinking about them (or having to look them up) to facilitate the process and to lessen any intrusion of the technical upon the narrative.  I love the technical (that’s why I liked Powerpoint and Movie Maker) but I’d worried that it would inhibit the nature of story; it doesn’t.

Should be finishing up on the links and cleanup tomorrow and Monday and give it a thorough run-through to test out the narrative itself.

I’ve been working in dribs and drabs today on this, but it takes total concentration to follow a path that makes some sort of sense.  Then there’s the Ahah! moments when you connect old men and shovels.

Story sometimes spilled in sips (writing spaces) unwittingly comes together in the big picture (mapview) and when you see it, you’re happily surprised.  I used to be amazed by it but after a few days of working in Storyspace and a few decades in writing itself, it becomes obvious that all plots, no matter how unrelated, are coming from the same source (your brain).  Just as when you suddenly remember something, these puffs of ideas are stored in some organized arrangement in memory and link to each other by more than just space or time.

Example: Kindergarten teacher (Sister Fidelis–couldn’t speak English so we did learn to sing and pray in Polish quite well, and she remembered to keep the hook off the small a for English) teaches her class about BEES and BEEHIVES and HONEY.  Sometime in adolescence you’re at the grocery story picking up HONEY for mom, and sure, you know all about the bee stuff, but that comes to mind as well as maybe the story the teacher told you about how her dog got stung sniffin’ round the hives.  So here’s this jar of HONEY you bring up to the counter, and you’re thinking about DOGs.

So the OLD MAN related in some way to where he originally showed up in each story, and there’s the connection:  his SHOVEL.

Well I thought it was cool.

I played Polish Nesting Dolls with one copy of Paths and believe it may be the way to go.  In fact, the cleaner look of the map views, each story able to telescope out individually, with ‘children’ still in the oven so to speak of some write spaces, actually invites more story to be told.  So I am converting all the notes to links (children) and most likely will work with this version of Paths from now on, converting the others by a simple "Save As." 

One thing I’m not sure of is if the full, un-nested mapview of the four stories I worked with originally wasn’t the best way to link the stories together.  If I had to do that now, using chart or outline, even though the text can be shown I don’t think the setup is as visually telling.  Maybe I was just used to it because that’s how I made up a "pseudomap" to show the link connections of the four stories, but this is something that may just need adjusting to  a different format before it becomes second nature.  Like clicking "Save" every few minutes.

On the one hand, fiddling around yourself to learn software (I’m talking pretending the manual doesn’t exist and resisting subtle suggestions) does give you intimate knowledge of how things work.  On the other, your clever circumnavigations eventually lead to a better solution that’s usually in the manual or given through subtle suggestions.

With so many writing spaces and links (though far from novel-number) and growing hour by hour, the map view showing all was getting a bit unwieldy. I did love the one screen view, but the chart, tree and outline views were useless.  But I was starting to lose spaces* and being directionally dysfunctional, hopelessly lost.

I’ve since saved the project one more time under a different name and shoved boxes into boxes to see how it worked.  Boring in map view, but much nicer in the others (except tree–what’s up there?) and I’ll see what it’s like to work with as far as writing and linking.

*FP&J Take 2:  Notes are neat but no, official links are better.  On the map I could never find the notes anyway so I’ll be turning them all into official links.

107 writing spaces and 163 links and still writing. 

Just when you think you know these people you find something out and you click open a writing space and you tell everyone else about it.  It’s free association at its finest and I’ll read and reread until I know all there is to know about what they’ve been hiding from me.

There are two main reasons for this turn of events:  One is the Storyspace environment that encourages side tracking and wandering as well as the small write spaces that invite one to "say a few words," while it grows with the size of idea.  The other is a back and forth e-mail story that I’ve mentioned that was perfectly timed to gear me up for this type of writing, this type of surprise that you can’t really plot out in story. 

Experience is one tool for the writer.  Exploration is another.

From e-mail correspondence, just wanted to make reference here to the Notes function of the program and the ways it can be used:

"I find myself using them to write the offbeat thoughts that come spurred by something I’ve read and I’m writing directly into SSP."  (sg)

"I  use notes in other kinds of documents. I used them sparingly in Sandoval, mainly as reminders for link fixes of foreshadowings.  Play with linkbacks or cycles to encourage rereading.  In Sandoval I often did a linkback and then added a new box with a subtle change to suggest just a tad of movement in another direction.  Often, there are other thoughts that accompany rereading that you wouldn’t think of otherwise. Some hypertexts use the map as an interface.  You could try that in future."  (se)

"I’m using the notes for loops because I don’t want to change the stories too much yet, but i’m adding a lot of "instances" or episodes into them, via a note linked to a note linked to a note linked back to the source, bypassing the note’s tendency (hardly tendency, more like genetic code) to return (not passing go, not collecting $200) directly after a single space."  (sg)

It struck me this morning that writing directly into the Storyspace writing spaces is very similar in appearance to writing into post body boxes here at Typepad (or for that matter, most weblog setups).

When I first started blogging, I wrote into the Word software, having become familiar and comfortable with that.  Remember, stage one is pencil and paper, two (for us elder folk) was a typewriter, and three was a word processor of some sort, the computer keyboard and screen.  Then we get used to certain software programs.  Until I readjusted my thinking and extended my comfort zone to the posting box format, I’d copied and pasted from Word.  Now I do the opposite just as a backup, but directly from the blog site so I can do weeks in a single sweep of selection.

Any new program is as intimidating as it is exciting; we want to be proficient, get comfortable when we are, and temporary reticence is a common feeling when entering new fields of vision in creative thinking.

So one of my questions regarding writing directly into the Storyspace format and the technical aspects getting in the way of creative flow has been answered.  The answer is: No.

I’m up to 90 writing spaces and 127 links, despite my determination not to make changes to the stories, just to focus on learning to maneuver within the Storyspace environment.

Something is spurring me on, inspiring with alluring visions of options and possibilities.  Words prod me into exploration, phrases like ribbons float on the Storyspace map to make links that enhance story.  Beauty comes randomly to this sentence or that, or a memory thought lost rises to soar into mind into text.

Or else I just got kicked in the ass by a Muse.