Hypercompendia

Had a hard time with this last story, #53. It came in a flash as it used to, meaning the opening lines were all there. Without knowing where it was going, I started writing it out and stumbled many times through it. It was taking a direction that seemed forced into a hypertext structure and I think it would have been a very different story had I let it be straight text.

Also have a problem letting go of some of the stories sometimes and they affect what comes after. 24 hours just isn’t always enough to shake a story or characters out of my head. The last two stories were tough to write because the boys of #51 Snakes and Snails were still with me. I think that may be one of my favorite stories so far but when this happens, it’s a blight on what comes after. There’s a change of mood, a change of world, a change of comfort zone.

He Was What He Ate

This story started out as a brainstorm. Unfortunately, something about the hypertext form had me extending it into a tangle that was not what I had originally thought it would be.

It’s a fun little story but with some meaning in there about friendships, human nature, relationships, and one of my favorite subjects, food.

The map is pretty straightforward and I don’t think there’s any way of reading all spaces in one reading. The links and spaces are almost on a mesh pattern that just seemed to form naturally as I was writing.

Family Tree

After the more serious, too realistic nature of #51 Snakes and Snails, I was happy to be inspired today to cut loose a bit and let my imagination take leave of reality.

Unfortunately, I don’t have that wild anything goes streak that Steve and many of the others allow to emerge in their work; it’s there, I just can’t seem to unlock the gates to set it loose on the public. I’ll likely be eighty and writing the strangest, free-est tales of my life. Well, not about my life; those will never get past my fingers or lips.

Couple things I realized with this story; first, that I tend to use the map as a source of inspiration and it becomes as much a part of the story as the words (that’s a tree by the way). Second, that while I aim to always link semantically, it’s not always possible on such short notice. The text links are relative in some form however, even if it’s a “he” or “she” thread pattern I’m weaving. And as always, the final link in the space is usually the boring, most direct route.

Another thing I’m becoming more aware of is how to direct the reader to take one path over another by word choice. For example, in a previous hypertext #46 Suicide Notes, it seemed that at a certain point in the story the text word of “father” would want to be clicked after foreshadowing led to that point. In this piece, well, I’m kind of guessing that “suck” will win out over “falling.”

Snakes and Snails (Temporarily Unavailable)

From Steve’s story I pulled dialogue, but in this case, between characters who listen to each other (I did a talk-around in #49 Earth to Moon). From Mark Bernstein I attempted to follow his suggestion in creating different stories of the characters that did not enter the conversation. Mark also influenced my decision to end the story as I did, following a couple tweets today.

The map tells an obvious story of structure, though it’s also obvious that my sense of fairness and balance affects my writing in hypertext map view. I wonder if I’d be quite this military about it if I worked in outline, or tree view. The linking does not look elaborate, but I think it accomplishes what I want it to do to serve the story best.

Today is day #51 of a summer of artistic endeavor. I’ve been reading, viewing, appreciating each and every entry and often am simply awed by the level of work being produced by this group. I see consistency and I see exploration. There are visions of daily life seen through the eyes of photographers, artists, writers. Artists encompasses the group as a whole and each individual can be called an artist as well, despite the medium used. Another thing they can all be called is storytellers, for each piece tells a story.

In going back over my own contribution of stories told in the hypertext format, I find myself struggling with keeping all the ends together of story under the technical side that hypertext requires. To a visual artist, there is composition, subject, and medium whether it be lens and focus or color palette and brush. To the writer, the technical will require grammar, language, keyboard and for all, internet access.

What this project has come down to for me is a self-learning exercise and what I’ve produced may require much editing, but it also has made me aware of the possibilities of both story and the hypertext form. With Tinderbox as my base of operations, I’ve been able to cut back on some of the technical requirements by duplicating the format for each story and simply changing color and moving writing spaces around to suit mood and plot.

What I’m planning on doing with this eventually is creating a website that offers updated hypertext short story and poetry on a free-to-read basis that will be open to all, sectioned into areas for reader interest and age, and without this forced daily writing, it would have been just a plan in the back of my mind and somewhere floating on my “to-do” list. If nothing else, I’ve gotten a jump on this idea and am ahead of the game in learning the intricacies of writing narrative hypertext. Summer may be fun and work, but I’ve a feeling it’s going to get even better after that.

Knife and The Ballerina

Well, this isn’t exactly what I’d planned for the big #50, but this is what I got.

Danger, authority, intrigue; that’s what I got out of today’s story. But it wanted to be a love story. It also didn’t want to be a continuation of the theme and color of #7 Schematica I and#25 Schematica  II, though I did bring in Knife as a character in this.

The mapping is similar to another one I did which tied together three characters or plots yet the focus should be on the horrible event and subsequent promise that holds them together. Until that is, they cut those bonds in an unhappy way.

Earth to Moon

While I have tried to maintain a sense of humor here, the topic of the current economy-borne fear affects this couple of the story. There are a few things here that have influenced the story. The “moon” conversation is based on Steve’s story for today. Couldn’t keep Ralph and Alice Kramden out of it once the moon was mentioned. A short story I read a few years back in a lit class about blackberries (I think) definitely filed the floor plan of two people having a conversation without listening to each other. Just noticed that I also took a suggestion from Mark Bernstein on his review of #33 Idle Conversation to do away with the opening “he said” and “she said.” This, with the characters addressing each other by name occasionally and by their own dialogue easily identifies who is speaking.

What I found interesting is that once the concept of a married couple’s separate conversations with each other was established, the map that I pre-layout with twenty large and ten small writing spaces were maneuvered into two circles which shared an edge. Probably shouldn’t admit this, but they sort of looked like little people to me at this point. The narrative threads can be traversed either as individuals or back and forth at nearly every point to get the full effect of the dual-topic-ed dialogue.

With nearly 50 short hypertext pieces done in the last month and a half, I am indeed learning a lot in the process–though I really think that I may just start editing them before I go on. I do try to do at least the copyediting for several days after; catching all those typos and moments of thinking that come out as huhs?

There are some good moments too. The last piece, done really on a dare against a sarcastic remark I made that brought up the concept of a continuous loop of narrative (#48). That’s something that is intriguing as to hypertext structure (mobius strip?) and yet includes a brief lesson in story as well.

One thing that’s got me a bit happier is that while I’m not playing with elaborate structures here, something is improving. In #46 Suicide Notes, there is much better transitioning between the two stories being told by the first person narrator. While a few writing spaces are revisited, it is with purpose, and if some are missed in the reading, the stories still hold together. This was extremely important in this piece because of the twist at the end–which I thought was clever but maybe some readers will have guessed at it anyway. I’m sure even this piece, with the story, the structure, and the nature all rooting for it, could still use some cleaning up.

While the driving force behind my work in hypertext is to educate and intrigue to overcome a widespread distrust and reluctance by even the most voracious literary readers and students, it’s an uphill battle to drag them into my world. For me as a writer, I enjoy it enough to keep exploring the nature of hypertext narrative.

Sequencing

This one is actually not as easy as it looks. There are two things I’ve followed here from Steve: the idea of the undead in his story is one thing.

The other? A challenge to write a five-space hypertext.

These two thoughts together come up with an unending supply of complete stories with no *particular beginning, ending or restriction of middle. Truly, a story to be written by the reader.

*Honest, your choice of click point actually starts the story in any of the five spaces.

Hands 2

This story is a thin thread following away from Hyptertext #2.

Sometimes the characters need to be followed, sometimes all that we’ve learned is enough. Here we delve a tiny bit further into the relationships of two couples who are tied together by an event that changes them with their reactions to it and to each other.

The map is simple, there are reasons to go back and follow a different path, or the reader can hop off at any one of the four places within this hypertext that might be considered an end.