Hypercompendia

Okay, so I can use stereotypes and turn ‘girl’ in a flash and change my mind.  It just seems that Paths is not only much further along in the hypertext processing plan, but it’s still rather dear to my heart and I want to make this project work because it’s based on a sound theme of story.  I’m still getting questions that would like answers from the characters.  It’s about them, and about that part of them that is in all the rest of us.

It’s also about choices.  And what ifs.  So I think  my own decisions are in keeping with the plot.

In continuing on Mark Bernstein’s essay, I’m getting a different feeling about linking.  In jumping in blindly, I naturally understood the plot linkage, managed to get creative with some side trails, but ran into unrecognized trouble with the interlinking of the stories.  Then and there, I came to depend heavily on guard fields to avoid the stories running into each other without reason or purpose. 

This, from Mark:

It is therefore interesting to note that Storyspace writers use them sparingly.  In the 28 hypertexts examined, 7 used guard field ubiquitously (in more than 20% of all links).  In eight hypertexts, guard fields are used occasionalaly, while in 13, the guard fields are completely absent.  Guard fields rarely require more than one clause: the mean guard field in "Afternoon" has 1.63, but few other hypertexts approach this number.  "Lust," a notoriously complex network, averages only 1.04 guard fields. 

What this tells me is that I need to set up the original structure as the main device for the hypertext flow and foregoe the dependence upon guard fields to make the connections.

Very interesting, the boy who didn’t believe in Santa watches as the sleigh is prepared, the reindeer harnessed in, but he can’t hear the bells, can’t get more than a glimpse of Santa.  Then he closes his eyes and says, I believe, I believe.  He picks up a bell that has fallen from the sleigh and though he couldn’t hear it before, he can now hear its lovely tinkle as he shakes it. 

So.  Does that mean then that to see and enjoy or sense the real, one must first have a belief based not empirically, but on faith?  That may seem contradictory, but how else have discoveries been made but upon someone’s belief–only an idea–that something can be created or achieved?  Approaching the need or desire by building a bridge of experience.

That may bring us back again to religion, and faith creating the reality.

Well that’s rather dopey: the silent little boy picked up last from the other side of the tracks is singing by himself on the back of the train.  He’s singing a very soulful sad Christmas song about how he’s never had a Christmas.  The little girl goes out and joins him in singing, but her version is about how all the children get presents and how wonderful Christmas is.  The poor kid keeps responding with "that I’ve never seen" type of stuff.  Now what made the writers think that this little interaction was going to make the kid feel any better?

He doesn’t.  He doesn’t get off the train when they arrive.  Going with my religion theory here, does he represent those who have no reason to believe?

Interesting.  This whole movie may be a metaphor for the trend towards falling away from religion and any belief in creationism or intelligent design.  The boy appears to be wavering in the face of practical evidence that his faith in Santa Claus just doesn’t measure up against.

The department store Santas, the red Santa hat in his father’s hip pocket, his mother’s statement about losing the magic, all these point to the different gods we acknowledge, and the idea of man himself being the most intelligent and only being at the top of the heap.  Man in fact, creating Santa/God himself in the costuming.

Is there something deeper in this ‘children’s’ tale?  Are the caribou on the track symbols of those who would bellow against belief?

I’m watching Polar Express and am rather fascinated by the animation.  It does bring some questions to mind though.

I’m not sure how this was put  together, but it is often the process of having the real actors do the scenes, then place the movements into animation to make them more realistic.  I mean, these are great–very lifelike.

But why, even though athese animated people look suspiciously alike–just like the game characters–there’s a certain something that is very similar in every animation, as if either the same artist drew them all or the same software used in the transformation.  Except of course, for the conductor, who is a very good likeness to Tom Hanks.  But what’s the magic of animation?  Why not just use the real Tom Hanks?

The eagle bringing the train ticket to his nest is incredible, though. 

Will be checking out the website as I watch.

These days find me in study mode and my current reading is an essay by Mark Bernstein titled Storyspace 1 that I found and printed out but for the life of me, cannot find the source except that it’s a link somewhere on Eastgate’s or Mark’s site.

What he does here is examine the beginnings and progression of the Storyspace program and gets into the structure of some of the twenty-eight works available at the time.  This is interesting reading as to the hypertext thought process and the efforts to accomodate the notions of reading and writing in a more flexible method.  It also shows me, without having to buy all the fiction available, some of the mapping the writers used and what may be the reasoning behind it.  This, after reading Patterns and Garden, is giving me a clearer picture of the software and what it can do.  I was going to say ‘should" do, but then I’ll once again be certain that not only would it not offer something new, but that it is likely to paralyze me further from action.

More on this later, then it’ll be on to Hypertext Now.

I’m starting on a new project in Storyspace, although this one also is a basis of a short story already written so I have to be careful as to how I approach the transition into multilinear narrative.  The good thing is that I do not have it trailed out, and it is a story that’s been a favorite of mine for years.  The trails are ideas only and I think that this is the best way to work in the Storyspace medium, allowing the imagination to act as a machete to cut new paths.

I’m admittedly stalled here on Paths.  Can’t seem to clearly see my way of structuring and maybe this is the part I’m not so good at doing.  I open the program up several times a day, fiddle a bit, then close it without resolution.  I suppose one could look at the story of this project as hitting several points of conflict and heading towards resolution.  The only thing is, is that in hypertext, there are many paths to take and that’s where I don’t seem to be able to settle upon the right resolution.  Or at least one or a few.

Soon as I’ve got my head out of the main pc and have that all set up with all the programs back in place and the network for sharing replaced, I’ll get back into this with fuller focus.

Or maybe sooner.  Maybe tonight.  Depends on the weather and what else I find that needs to be done that doesn’t draw me in or presents more of a quandry than Paths.

You can read your own work a zillion times and yet when you’re looking for something in particular, breaking a story down into sequencing of plot points, you see it in an entirely different way.  In Paths, since I’m attempting to make a more interesting maze that remains logical and flowing from a beginning to an end, I’m looking for the areas in which I can allow wandering off into foreshadowing and backstory that will still come around to the main trail and go forward.

One of the best uses of Storyspace is in separating the plot points into the series of text boxes that build upon yet remain aloof from each other.  These mini stories will become loops that serve as the plot points.  In the end, these plot points not onlyy move the narrative forward, but enhance each other by alluding to a story that is never really put into words.

So yes, I’ve made yet a third version of Paths and am placing the blocks in different piles to build a new structure.