Hypercompendia

The maps are now clickable to get to the story, as is the title headline of each piece. What I’d like to do is make the maps “click to enlarge” as well, but that probably could most easily be achieved by a separate byline “Click here to enlarge.” The other thing I need to consider is that with 100 stories, my server space would be filling up pretty fast. Remember, with my other weblog, Spinning, there are close to 5500 entries over five and a half years along with loads of images that take up bytes.

A reminder again to new hypertext users (and nobody is really a new user–you hypertexted to get here!) the colored text is a link to another path in the story (don’t worry, I’ll get you safely back home), the next time you come upon that writing space the visited link will be a different color. Rereading is usually an invitation rather a duh moment in hypertext. And going back via browser backbutton is perfectly acceptable.

Hope this helps!

The Dumpster

Steve’s story today was a wonderfully touching tale of a child’s love for his father who decides to take off in a dirigible and the most obvious element of the story for me was the twist.

I can’t compete with that.

But what I picked up was a family situation and decided to play with the hypertext linking as an exercise for today’s work. What I’ve tried to do is keep track of the actions of each of four family members in reaction to a single proposed event. The conflict within each of the four characters is then resolved in what they think is a way, which in fact turns out to be the result only of one of the characters.

And for fun, I threw in an invisible gorilla.

I’ve also tried a different method of ‘transitional” linking by naming names–in other words, there are links to boxes of one or more of the characters that will bring the reader back into that thread.  Though it’s perfectly acceptable to follow through with each character to the end, it’s probably more fun to keep up with each of them individually and that’s just what this method of linking allows.  It looks a lot more complicated than it is; I’ve gone through switching around between characters and still found generally satisfying stories. I intend to try this method a few more times in the future to see if it can be even more smoothly arranged.

The Body Has Its Say

Had some problems with this one from the get-go. My original idea was drawn from Steve’s story that focused a character’s awareness of his feet, and in turn that became a metaphor for things accomplished and things we would like to do. In other words, choices. The part I centered on was an arrangement of the body parts in an argument as to which was the most important to the body as a whole. I wrote up about five spaces and just wasn’t happy with it. In the back of my mind I recall reading Aesop’s Fables as a child and I believe there was a similar argument between the stomach and another vital part.

So I started wiping out almost every word but maintained a couple just as a possibility. The story started out with an awareness of the mind, moved to feet, and then by the third space was something totally unexpected and that’s what took over.

In answering comments this morning I wanted to share the concept of some hypertext advantages in writing that can be used by the writer to enforce, enhance, demystify the story for the reader.

One is color. In writing for the 100 Days Project, I find I’m selecting color themes for the individual stories based on the mood or tone of the story. For example, using the bold primary colors for #10 Dimensional which is futuristic; using silvery greys for the psychological unreality of #17 Smoke and Mirrors; feminine pinks and mauves for #19 The Perfect Woman.

Another use of color is change of mood or indication of a change of some sort within the story. In one of my favorite pieces because it plays a bit on the Interactive Fiction influence of text games, #30 Dark Moves, the change from the text box from beige to black indicates a time when the lights go off as electricity is lost during a thunderstorm. It’s subtle, but it can be an effective tool.

I’ve used placement of text box as an important clue to the reader that something in the story has shifted: it could be point of view, space or setting, or the space of time, meaning backstory. In the latest piece, #37 Love and War, there are two narrative voices, that of first person in the character of the wife, and a third person pov following the movement of her husband during the same time period. I’ve also taken advantage of the traditional method of change which is italicizing so that even in reading traditional book form, we know there is a change of character or setting–think Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.

Size of the text boxes are also relevant: the narrow 225-pixel size I’ve been using as asides, or for containing intersecting passages.

These are tools for the writer to use to not only guide or give clues to the reader, but to visually enhance the story.

Love and War

What I liked about Steve’s story today was the obvious man against self conflict; an internal struggle between two loyalties. It is likely the hardest fighting we ever do, when our beliefs and faith are challenged by contradictory forces.

I’ve tried to follow that pattern of conflict, but in hypertext, and with my own introduction of two characters, I may have overplayed the point. But also in hypertext, there is the option of following one thread that may show you only one side of the story, but should still give a story. I have taken advantage of switching points of view here, something that is more common in hypertext because of its nature, but also used the traditional method of changing typeface to italic for the third person pov besides the positioning of the spaces.

The mapping of this one, just as in the previous, allows switching paths up to a point when the fate of the characters have been decided by the reader. Though of course, there’s always another way of reading the story. ; )

The Nature of Nature

I just loved Steve’s story today. It was simple and exciting and real. With that inspiration, I set to work immediately and came up with something that became complex, low level and surreal. Which is probably what I should have expected since I did base it on a complete role reversal of who’s talking to whom here.

As far as the mapping, it’s another case of at some point, there is no turning back. There are two different complete stories here, and at a place where the reader makes his or her choice, the path is set, aside from a few side trails of secondary minor story.

It was a lot of fun to create and to follow along this story.

Day and Night

This one is actually a group of short shorts, more of a poetical nature tied together by theme and motifs into a whole.

While it may appear that you can get lost in it forever, there is actually a method to the mapping process and long-time hypertexters may discover the secret of getting through and both seeing all lexias while repeating very few.

It started from the word ‘morning’ and indeed, that was the first space written in. From there one element of nature, one element of man’s time led the threads. This piece called for a hop-skip-and jump pattern while maintaining a fairly rigid structure to be explored by the writer as well as the reader. Or something like that.

It’s day #35 and I’m up five days on css and html templates and even, yes the Tinderbox maps. Through a series of folders and organization I have these four files in  “x” files (neat, eh?) as preparation for stories: 100column.css; 100column.html; titlec.html; x.tbx — though of course named x through x8 (some aren’t colorized yet)

Tinderbox is a godsend in this project as the base camp for creating the hypertext story. While there is no rule as to what format I’m following or how many writing spaces I’ll be using, it is easy enough to change according to what I’m guessing the story will ask of me to lay it out. Some want circles. Some want squares. Some want organization and some want nothing to do with me.

The first illustration is of the basic map, guessing that I’ll average 16 spaces, maybe more, maybe less; that I’ve been using a different sized box as “policemen” or traffic controllers or asides; that there needs to be room to maneuver and clearly show links when I’m first starting out with the story (sometimes I link everything as I’m writing it, sometimes I link just the main thread and hook up the rest later, sometimes I just sit and stare); and that the empty boxes are a lure (or a kick in the pants) to move on.

All this just helps me keep focused, something to play with in between bolts of brilliance (I play a lot) so that I don’t wander off to the garden or into the clutches of Tai Pei. The second illustration has been rearranged a bit to suit what I think is a prose piece that wants some structure to its life.  We’ll see.

Twelve Noon

What I was looking for was a love story, a relationship that survived a society. I’m a much more traditional writer than Steve on any given day. When I’m not in a particularly happily creative frame of mind, it’s difficult for me to force a story to fit into a surrealistic setting.

So, it turned out to be a strange society that I dumped my pair of lovers into and let them fend for themselves. This is one story that certainly was given free rein in where it was going and what it wanted to be. The only control I had (or exercised, since I can manage to browbeat my characters into submission if I so choose) was the Tinderbox map which had been laid out in a semi-organized form of where I thought the story would be strong and what it was depending upon for enhancement and side stories.

So here it is; as with all others, haven’t done final editing (is that ever done?) and I almost feel like I didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.

Idle Conversation

This is a study in pace via conversation only, with minimal or no narrative. Hopefully I’ve maintained a story arc by building tension via some conflict between the two characters of the story.

I’ve also, in focusing on simple dialogue, not gotten elaborate with the hypertext linkage, and it really is fairly linear, even if you take the “thought  process” links (not particularly clever here, it’s been done a zillion times). In fact, these side links shouldn’t even be necessary if I’ve properly, by dialogue alone without even adverbs, done my job.  (And I do apologize for the dialogue bubbles on the map–couldn’t resist!)