Hypercompendia

Have you ever gone back and read something you’ve written a while ago and you find yourself surprised by your own words?

In preparing a presentation on a writer’s experience with hypertext, I’ve been going back through the posts in the Storyspace category here. I’m copying & pasting the portions of the posts into a Pages program to sort of give myself a timeline of events in learning the hypertext environment as well as highlighting the major points in writing into it.  Then I’ll edit, edit, edit, leaving just some form of outline upon which to base my talk.  But oh, how I wish I could just print out the posts into a book format and hand it out; I’d almost forgotten how exciting a trip it was!

But I did find a gem of an opening line (and as we all know, if I have my opening line then I usually can run from there) and this may even be duplicated in slide show format in case I get too nervous to do more than mumble.  It’s the very first post I wrote on beginning the Storyspace project, and it foretells exactly what was to come, and what I had oddly enough planned as my topic of this talk:

Opening Post, originally on Spinning, 10/27/07:

STORYSPACE: Something New

Got it.  Downloaded and registered and ready to go.  I check out the manual and am almost intimidated: 317 pages.  I don’t like anything that takes 317 pages to learn.

But I’d already played in this and now I’m ready.  The manual’s just a look-see.  There in case I need it while the story’s getting laid.

I am not me and nothing I have written to this time will ever be the same.  It brings out poetics.  It brings ideas.  It is a map that’s ready to be designed into a story.

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.

Harder this time making the transition from the straight and narrow to the mystery and fun of multiple choice.  That is, linear to hypertext. But deadlines loom and so all must be put aside except for those things that are topmost on the list of things to do.  The fascination of the mind, the reason Bonnie hung herself, and the lady who will be depended upon to save the people of her country each must wait till other things are done.

Nice link (thanks to Grand Text Auto) to a mess of info (that’s a good mess, as in ‘mess of fish’) on interactive fiction.  Adding it to the sidebar too:  Planet IF

I know I’ve said it here before; hypertext appears to me to resemble the cognitive process. The chain of events that are sparked by a word is a recall of experience based on memories–allowing for perception–and often wanders off the trail to be so far removed from "three links back" that we find ourselves within a familiar but seemingly unrelated space. 

In attempting to comprehend the effect of Alzheimers from the inside workings of such a mind afflicted, I wonder if we can see a pattern, trace a word-to-word progression of a thought.

Fascinating.  Terrifying too.