Hypercompendia

Been playing with Inanimate Alice this morning and while I’m not nuts about the repetitive musical background, the story is nice and the graphics are great (Story #4 just came out recently).

I’m wondering, though; while it isn’t called a hypertext (do arrow pointers count as text?), it isn’t exactly interactive beyond the do you click to go forward and progress the story in a pretty linear path determined by the author, or do you click back a frame or two, or just click out? We recently had a discussion on what is hypertext exactly, and how it is similar to and different from the defined works such as interactive fiction, or the word hyperfiction or hyperlinks.  How much interactive user input is required beyond turning ‘pages’ to qualify it? Are user choices necessary so that alternate paths must always be created within the arrangement? In this piece, the only choice to take an alternate was to choose one of four hands that pointed in different directions, or a room of a house plan, or to choice an "album" of photos clearly marked as ‘school’ or ‘home’ etc.  All brought the reader back to the intersecting point to then choose another.  As a matter of fact, I believe the previous paths were no longer available for choice (always to me seeming to say "you dummy, you did that already" so we’re not even going to give you that option.").

The graphics are great though, and this is an interesting form of new media that I really am getting more and more intrigued by, enough to likely work on it by starting to add more into the Tinderbox projects file.

Working now on the boy:

He shifted the skateboard in a flash of yellow into a casual trophy held under his arm, his feet slap-slapping the sidewalk in a confident rhythm.  He felt his mother in the upstairs window, curtains held back at a secretive slit.  With the skill and need of a nine year-old, he slipped through.

Maybe it is just my nature, that of seeking balance and form; maybe it is the story itself, but it grows as a web, or a snowflake, reaching outward in a pattern that is shaping itself into equality for each of its characters.

Two have met–though for a second only; the flash of a nod and a smile.  What is the tone of their relationship, what is the basis beyond the park and routine?

It is nearly painful, this writing, this story.  It is setting its own pace and like the characters with their lives stored away in compartments of their mind, the shelves are filling up even as the boxes are taken down and opened, sifted through and sealed and returned.

Man, still going through the same twelve spaces as things clarify:

Spent quite a bit of time last night and this morning on this piece.  Rearranged the mapview once I made a connection between characters.  It is progressing oh so slowly though; I wonder what it is so different this time that makes it so.

I seem to have the general story in mind, the characters and the setting.  Only a small part of the ending do I know and that is only because it’s there already, in the beginning.  What I seem to be spending time on is the language, the knowing and the building of the characters.  Each of them will meet and pass another, yet each I feel are tied together in some way.  That’s where the hypertext form is so very useful.  I’d gotten quite excited when I noticed where the old woman walked, and who sat waiting up ahead. And so they nod and greet each other, knowing only what they see of each other in this sometimes routine, this single similar moment that repeats itself with regularity, and just as regularly remains upon that level, that main trail.  The rest of their lives, past, present and future are only known if delving deeper…

…like following another trail.

Knocked out five projects off my original Map: one done, down & dirty; one that really required nothing from me but to read and learn and didn’t require a reminder to do that; and three that also ask no more involvement from me than as a spectator. 

What I’m finding is that Tinderbox is very easy to manipulate–at least at this early stage but I think it best to get the skeleton of the overall project list set up so that major overhauls such as this are kept to a minimum before the lists get large or the arrangements not as I will eventually want them.  One thing I’m working on is the overall values of the containers and the notes by both numbering and color coding the main receptacles. I like that Tinderbox makes everything look less overwhelming and, well, pretty.  Psychologically that works to serve as both invitation and satisfaction as work progresses.

This was the underlying theme of my presentation and yet I still screw up!

In transferring weblog postings to paper book form, I ran into some minor troubles.  Some were program or perhaps o/s related (and if not for my unskilled but eager hands, the problems were possibly more easily overcome) such as the transfer of font style and size, the non-transfer of hyperlinks, and the necessity to reverse order the postings.  Done.

But there are trails, just as in hypertext, that may be overlooked when the main problem is fixed but the succession of influence isn’t thoroughly checked into.  Even as I reversed the postings, I’d forgotten the references:  "in the post below" doesn’t mean that anymore!

Oh well, this was just to make available in hard copy the Storyspace posts for myself and two others.  Limited edition publication, and one’s already in the mail.

Very nice interview with Mark Bernstein at the Ireland Intruders where he discusses weblogs and the importance of this phenomenon below the surface of its more obvious method of communication.

I’ve been reading both Mark Bernstein’s The Tinderbox Way and the manual for the program but I’ve been typing some information on Notes and sticking them in their motherships (more properly called containers).

While I don’t want to go too far in the wrong direction driven by enthusiasm but lacking know-how,  it seems safe enough to make up individual notes for each piece of relevant information such as files (though I haven’t dropped them in yet) and websites, both direct and indirect.

As I learn the flexibility of Tinderbox, I’m convinced that it’s going to become an integral part of organizing my life’s projects and better, it will keep things upfront and accessible so nothing will become lost in the shuffle nor forgotten and unworked upon.  I particularly like the color coding and options for sizing to highlight the more pressing or next step to be taken for each individual project.

Somehow this morning revealed the man to me: