Hypercompendia

I’m still not sure of the balance between what hypertext demands of a writer and what it offers as opportunity, but I do know that there is a great difference in processing information from the creative standpoint.  This, of course, will translate as the same balance of power for the reader.

This is what I’m working on to submit as a workshop presentation on hypertext and the writer.  I have written tons, hundreds of posts on my work in the Storyspace hypertext software, and to aid in my organization of the process, to catch the initial highs and lows of learning to write in something that was nearly as foreign to me as Sanskrit, I have pulled the Storyspace postings into a word processing program that is now over 100 pages and growing.  The thing is, once you’ve walked around the area for many months, once you’ve slept in the hills and planted the valleys, you tend to get smug and forgetful of that initial awe in learning.  This "book" that I’m printing out and putting together with my little punch and plastic binding machine, will serve well as a reference guide to highlight those ecstatic moments of discovery; the rants and ravings of the frustration until the problems faced were overcome (or answered by the SSP & TXCC elves). 

What cracks me up is the fact that I’ve come to rely on traditional ‘hard copy’ to aid in a presentation on the digital and this: because of the medium of weblogging, the traditional is not so traditional in that it starts at the end and ends at the beginning.

How’s that for an unconventional brave new world?

First time in a few days I’ve been moved to go back in here and see what’s going on with Scott and his dead wife, Bonnie.  Good thing, too, since we find out more about that mysterious black-haired lady everyone avoided at the funeral service.

Noted author, screenwriter, and playwright Charles Deemer has been asked to produce a hyperdrama for the Hypertext 08 conference in Pittsburgh in June, and he has been recording his progress on his weblog.  It’s fun and inspiring to be allowed to watch a pro setting up in the Storyspace environment and I look forward to his many daily postings on the project to gain some insight into how the real experts work.

Sort of bogged down on this and losing steam rapidly, but now and then some ideas come through, last a Writing Space or two, and peter out and are left hanging. This space (below) seemed to be a natural offsprout and yet it leads nowhere–for now.  It may remain, it may get knocked out of the story, but for now it, like my antagonist, will be left hanging.

A link to a relevant post on the CW weblog: Looking for Links.

…and I would think that with the emergence of Sony’s reader, Amazon’s Kindle, and the extraordinary amount of literary journals, magazines, and newspaper supplementing their physical presence with the online  version, this is the time for IF, Animation, and the hypertext format of Storyspace to come into their own and head for prime time space.

So many folks simply do not understand the notion of hypertext and some that do still do not care for the cold laptop version of a book, or the distraction of clicking (versus flipping pages) so the audience is less than for the more traditional manner of reading.  But as more of literature goes digital, as the old is transformed into the new without changing context, people are realizing that they have opportunity to read just as they’ve learned to adjust to unbodied meetings and paperless reports and the immediacy and abundance the web offers in diversity and range.

As the changes become the norm, with the old still available and as comforting as a favorite blanket, the writer seeks to overcome his own trepidations and boldly lay claim to new territory.  There is no one set way to approach this business of writing for there is one thing that technology does not restrict but rather encourage: creative spirit will always take its own individual path.

Surely I’ve said this before, only it was likely in a more ‘over the river and through the woods’ way–which is my style unless I’m in a bad mood, and then I’m quite short and concise.  Or concise anyway; I’m always short–regardless of mood.

Don’t you love that first paragraph above? I’ve said nothing!

However, this illustrates the point; some paths of lyrical prose may be interesting, but not necessary to plot or story.  This is one of my personal approaches to the use of Storyspace and hypertext in narrative.  I can embellish or expound for those who care to read this way, or allow those who just seek a quick journey to follow  a thread made up of pure plot.  Embellish and expound are not perhaps the right words; rather enhance and reveal would better describe my meaning here.  A story told should be complete without the side trails; the meandering paths for my intent are bits of information that provide the more adventurous reader with a deeper perception of character and situation.

This, of course, is only one method of writing into the hypertext story world.  One of the more heralded notions is to allow the reader to write the story by making it an entirely singular experience based on choice.  I would wonder why; the author chooses to share, why not the reader?

(Note: Just changed the title on this post because it was attracting unwanted attention.)

Finding out some things about Scott I hadn’t known before.  Or maybe I’m just setting up for a joyful romp into a darker world.

Watching Jurassic Park and noticed an excellent notion of hypertext: concurrent events that cause extreme tension.  In the compound, Laura Bern is following radio instructions on how to turn the system back on so that all electricity, the fences, the lights, computers systems, all will be returned to normal.  At the very same moment, the Professor and the two kids are climbing an electric fence after having checked to make sure it is non-electrified momentarily. 

Two major events are about to collide.

This is what a hypertext adventure can do, mimicking the balance of tension of one story line or the other (or many) while the writer carefully guides the reader to the point at which they meet.

What I’m realizing without having planned it this way (and maybe I really ought to investigate the planning of story for hypertext) is that I’m creating a series of images, not necessarily episodes but flashes of what is happening in this expose of someone’s life.  I feel like a fly’s eye of cameras only each exact image tells a different bit of information when zoomed in.  The facets combined into the whole becomes a whole; thus seen in one view only.  Investigating each more thoroughly becomes more interesting for the nuances of difference.

Or something like that.