Hypercompendia

Figured it was time for a new mapview, though it’s hard to tell from this, reduced down to 25% and reduced again via the website limitations.  Not all Children (spaces) are visible since they’re not necessary to see when I’m working on the project.  Note too that I’ve decided not to rework the stories out of their ‘columns’ since there aren’t that many links between them and the majority of the links are offshoots (in language, maybe ‘offshouts’?) within the stories themselves.

Got a lot done on Paths today and finally reached the ending.  There’s still lots to do on it though.  First, to check all the links–sent it off and already found one that bypassed a small spot of a story.  There are also some hangers left from Child Spaces that still connect to the wrong Writing Spaces by going to the next one in the story line, or to another when that’s become a no-no.

Some happy surprises: in working in Map View and keeping in mind that the bits of each story should flow into another (or as I’ve since added, into a "core" narrative) it’s nice to come across spaces that are linked not only by the natural rhythm and topic, but to find a word that matches in each without having planned it.

But there’s plenty more to do and I’m hoping to wrap this project up over the holidays so that new ones can be started. 

I’ll also have to figure out what to do with the piece once it’s done.  If possible, I can maybe link to it from here and post it somehow online.

I’ve come to a point in Paths where I’m at what was the ending of each story.  This brings me to a dilemma–who gets the last word?

While there’s more to do on this whole piece if I want to take it further–plus there are some roundabout loops I’d like to make and I also have to check out the overall linkage if somebody takes a wrong path–this ending creates a whole new drift to the narrative.  Where shall I leave the reader?  Two of the tales seem irresolute and therefore they will be the first to ‘end.’  Oddly enough, the last two are what I’d call parallel in time but for a choice.  Each also has already two different endings–depending upon which time you go through (though I believe this will have to be changed and I’ll need to corral the reader into going back and double-dipping to catch both). 

Could be a fun problem to work out.

Just the idea of someone reading Paths got me going again in a new burst of energy and some semblance of reorganization to finish at least the stories as they stand, adding the core narrative and weaving all five together with knots.  Just about done.

Then I can move back into a more fun part for a while, testing, changing, adding wandering about into wherever it leads me.

Then it’ll be done.

I’m curious if there has been data accumulated that indicates which is the most likely reader response in clicking on hypertext link in a narrative.  Because of the way Paths was born, as quadruplets let’s say, there is some linearity to the stories, as well as wonderful parallels which is where the hypertext comes in.  However, in making the changes to allow for a less linear track I’ve made the Writing Space Click to bring the reader to a more wandering path, but left a Text Link Click to allow him to follow a particular story line through.  Now he doesn’t have to follow that all the way through, he can Writing Space Click somewhere further down and that’ll shove him over onto another thread, but he can never get back to cover ground that’s been missed in the process.

This is likely why Jackson’s Patchwork Girl is comprised of all text links only; if a writing space has only one way to go, the entire text of that space is a link. 

It looks to me like I’m screwing this story up royally.  Otherwise, I think the way to fix it is to disallow those four linear paths completely, but make other paths more interesting to follow.  It’s a holy mess, it is.  Maybe if I stop myself from seeing the linearity–after all, each story may conclude within an hour or a day, but there is considerable flashback and wondering within that time period that negates the necessity of linearity–maybe then I can myself hop around within each story to further destroy any notion of time.

Knowing what the majority of hypertext readers do as habit would help me in this one.  For the record, I’m a clicker of all text links before I move into the next Writing Space.  Unless it appears that I’m going too far astray, in which case I retrace my steps to where I hung a left.

Got the thought of checking out other hypertext fiction written in the Storyspace program and was surprised to find that Shelly Jackson’s Patchwork Girl is linked Text to Text, with little Writing Space to Writing Space connections.  Another unusual thing is that for each link, the guard field is filled in with "Textlink."  This is not mentioned in the manual, and I’m not sure what purpose is serves though I suspect that it may have been an option in an earlier version of Storyspace perhaps.

I’m going to see if I can get some information on Michael Joyce’s Afternoon, A Story as well as reread Mark Bernstein’s essay that I’ve previously mentioned here since it had many examples of the link and map styles used.

While no one is going to follow someone else’s strategy–nor could they–it’s helpful to realize the planning behind the narrative.

Via Dennis Jerz,  at Wired: Top 10 Tips for Blogging from Jorn Borger, and this one in particular:

2. You can certainly include links to your original thoughts, posted elsewhere … but if you have more original posts than links, you probably need to learn some humility.

Man, I knew I was doing something wrong but I didn’t realize it was a personality flaw at its base.

Obviously yes, one of the main purposes of weblogging is to create an interconnection of links that relate and bring in new ideas and discovery.

But how, if no one is providing new material?  What’s so great about access to all information without an increase in information that blossoms from it?  I do enjoy the weblogs that keep us up to date by providing sort of a clearing house for linkage, doing the circuit and culling down to the best and posting these.  Sure saves me a lot of time.  On the other hand, one thing I’ve noticed lately is that even using Google, the search brings up a good amount of places that are merely more clearinghouses for the term.  Links to links to links. Sounds good, but it’s merely frustrating when you’re looking for an answer instead of just more places to look for it.

Maybe I just see weblogs as more diverse in their potential and think that the freedom and voice it has given to millions shouldn’t come with somebody else’s rules applied.  For me, weblogs provide long or short bursts of reading in a variety of topics and moods.  Sort of the Reader’s Digest for the world outside the bathroom.

I believe it was Sally, one of the English professors and a friend from whom I first heard the term "weaving."  It meant tying together various strands of story into a braided whole. 

For the past month I’ve been reworking this story (Paths) to fit more into the hypertext environment by taking advantage of the potential it offers.  Every now and then an image would come to me of a macrame’d wall hanging, something I haven’t done in decades yet the idea of making patterns from separated strands of rope is exactly what I seem to be doing now in making this project work.  The Writing Spaces of Storyspace are like the knots where intersecting strands meet and change direction.

It’s been tedious reworking the narrative and every now and then I want to trash it and start something new.  I find myself reading the same thing over and over and over again as I look for a design in plot or even just in language.  The characters are all at a point where reflection brings wistful wondering.  All see the same things differently and made their choices based on that.  Mistakes are made, facts are mistaken.  Normal life cycles and normal concern as the wheel turns.  Like looking down from the highest point of the ferris wheel.

Did a lot of work on the Paths project last night (closed the shop early because of the snow storm–even though the shop is the other side of the driveway!).  Something still isn’t working right.

Snipping all the past connections among the stories helped me see the narrative as a whole, and since I’m familiar enough with the story by now (Cheesh–I should be!) I can see just from the title boxes and a bit of text (I have the entire story in Map View at 75%, with most children out of sight [as good children should be when adults are concentrating]) so there still are the visual connections that can rather easily be recognized as pattern. I’ve even renamed some of the new Writing Spaces from Narrative 1, 2, etc. to Taste, Touch, Scent. However…

Okay, so I screwed up somewhere and made a loop that can either a) drop a lot out of the story by its bypassing nature or b) act as a Mobius strip.

Personally, I kind of like the latter. 

As a side note here, my own project name of Paths is going to have to change.  It was a temporary "holder" title and I’ll start thinking of something new to name it if I ever get it done.

Kate Pullinger, one of the authors of what is described as a network novel, Flight Paths, was gracious enough to address some of my questions here, particularly about the beginnings of the story itself.  But what it has me thinking about is more on the marketing of something like this, or any non-physical project available on the web as its main dispersal method.  How soon is too soon to offer something to the public?  And once something is online, you can bet–and hope–it’s considered available.  Even in my younger days in Production, Marketing, and Sales, there was always the argument that the product wasn’t ready even as the brochures were being printed.  I used to work for EFI, a company that made educational audio flashcards and you try to drag those units back out of the hands of five year-olds.

Two more things come to mind.  One is the intricate work on Storytron that had me more than interested in it until my interest waned with the seemingly slow progress (this is the microwave effect: the idea that no matter how much quicker something new is over the old, it’ll never be quick enough for some folk!) and the realization that it wasn’t exactly what I was looking to do with any creative force I could muster.

The other thing that the question brings up is that with the internet accessibility, and given the artist’s anxious nature, we often put things out as they begin to allow others to see how they develop.  Me, well I’m as guilty as the next guy, evidenced by my highs and lows, it’s finished–no, it’s not, workings with any project here or  in the past, on Spinning.  Right now, I’ve made one poor overworked professor read a work in progress in my initial wonderment with Storyspace (not Storytron; Storyspace) and through subtle hints he made me aware that it just wasn’t working.    On Spinning, my nature for literary review is to post as I read, just as my workings here in reviewing Storyspace, Storytron, Facade, Alice, Scratch, and anything else I’ve stuck my nose into.

As far as the lengthy and fine-tuned Terms and Conditions of Flight Paths, I’m sure there’s a good reason behind it.  It could be pressure from those that granted financing, or it could be something as simple as my own dopey little Acknowledgement in one of the first Writing Spaces I filled out in Storyspace.  When you’re into a project but you’re not sure of the next step, you tackle a different portion of it and hey, that’s done.

So patiently I’ll wait, check in on progress at the Flight Paths site and I’m sure we’ll all see some real directions laying themselves out soon.