Hypercompendia

The Metamorphosis of Marley – (Marley 3)

It’s tough going back to a character, an environment that you’ve left behind unfinished. That’s why I have a file of “opening lines” and why they’ve accumulated over the years (though I am grateful for that now as it’s helped me in the last story).

Once again, I followed the theme of serialization and went back to two previous (#4 and #5) hypertext stories to pick up where we left off with Marley and a mysterious woman. For some reason, I didn’t seem to want to help Marley sort out his life; my mind just had a hard time dealing with him. This story lends more air time to the antagonist of Stephanie then.

The other thing I’ve played with here is the hypertext form as a serious choice of paths. Just as in #30 Dark Moves where the reader follows a trail of his own choice that ends up in one of five different places, this story allows movement between possibilities up to a point, then the pattern has been decided. Of course, there’s always re-reads which presents a whole different perspective.

In working on hypertext story #32, it struck me that I have an advantage over the other storywriters in that hypertext can be updated continually to reflect changes such as serialization (which in this case, I followed Steve’s lead in pulling that out as one of the elements of the story). All it takes is to code in the link on the previous story to lead right into the new one, and so on.

Since I have different titles for the story that do not reflect the connection (bad move on my part, I need to fix that) depending upon color theme instead, I had a bit more trouble in locating the previous two (#4 Commitment and #5 Shadows) to reacquaint myself with the characters and plot. What I’ll likely do is add a sub-title to the others, include it in #32, and add those links from one to the next as an option. The other thing to think of some day is to interlink the stories internally; which would be a nightmare for me to attempt right now.

And while the other participants who choose to serialize some of the stories can easily do so by reference links too, I still must point out that it’s linkage and hypertext they’d be using, since the medium we’re all using is the same: the internet.

Eugene the Flying Machine

Had to dig into my file of opening lines for this one. I was looking for a theme of parent-child relationships and a sense of growth in character. All I had on this story was a 75-word opening paragraph with no idea of where it was going. I changed it around a lot, cut out a lot and voila! Had a story opening for hypertext but still without any idea of where it was going.

There’s magical realism–couldn’t quite do the fairy tale feel, maybe because of the grey rainy day–but it started taking a serious turn. Maybe also because of the rain.

There’s satisfaction in knowing that Eugene and his story has finally been told. There’s even more satisfaction in knowing there’s a whole file of opening lines and ideas if I ever get stumped for story again.

Dark Moves

I knew what this was going to be the minute I finished reading Steve’s story. It just lent itself naturally to the interactive fiction game environment. The problem I had in maintaining that element in a hypertext environment was the brevity of the pieces and the limited amount of time to establish anything more than a fairly simple story.

As you can see in the map, there’s another strange long rectangular note and that’s something I’ve been making use of as a quick place to scribble notes. In this case, I had the plan for the layout, the rooms and the paths, the choices, the endings, and a few coding imperatives once the templates were established. I seem to have gotten into a rhythm with these pieces by first establishing a rough map outline once the concept is in mind. On this piece, it was the first time I wrote the story out in a basic thread that would lead through all the rooms and paths, while keeping in mind the potential links and outcomes.

This one offered many opportunities to play with the hypertext medium for effects and time was the only restriction. One of the thoughts I had but didn’t incorporate was to leave solid color spaces with the same color text as hidden links that would produce a random effect based upon where the reader clicked on the area (hitting a text link without being aware of it). Something to play with when I have more time.

It’s a fun one and there’s one thing I can guarantee: there is a way out. There are five ways out.

This one, #30, just struck me the second I finished reading Steve’s story (I was getting ready to do a story on John’s wonderful lamp and wall image before I read it) and it’s obvious why: it’s a cliffhanger.

So I took it a step back and changed to a second person point of view, and the interactive fiction feeling snuck in there once that was in place, and of course, I came up with a touch of the Twilight Zone (God bless you, Rod Serling, may you rest in peace). All this is just sort of snowballing into a zillion ideas and paths. There’ll have to be added code into the css sheet which is starting to look longer than a roll of paper towels, and then some of the pages will need to reflect those specific codes. What I’d love to do with this piece is add images but there’s no time to take and make them. And I’d love to make the map up to look like one from IF–I’ve made do with what I have here too. And audio–Lord how I wish I could throw in the audio clips of thunder and stuff, it would really enhance this tremendously.

I’m excited by this one, as happened with some of the others. Most of ’em, I suppose.

Hot Dogs and Beans

What was coming to me as a Chekhovish tale turned into a hard-to-write reality with a more serious tone and no sense of humor whatsoever.

From Steve’s story there were plenty of options; the serialization, the metafictional reference, the element of complication, the building of tension, the pacing via dialogue. All that, and I simply chose beans.

This story didn’t come easy and I’m not sure I’m as happy with it as I would be with some more reworking. The links are attempting to run a parallel world of three people yet play a lot with time. The focus is on relationships and fear and that’s where it was harder for me to be as concise as a flash fiction (though I really should copy and paste the text into Pages and see what the word count really comes out to be) wants the story to be.

Dreamers

This is kind of a fun one, more focused on the linkage and testing how far back a link can go in a story without causing a narrative glitch. But the subject matter here made it easy to play. Hypertext is the best medium for choice and a zillion endings based on paths. I’m dealing with two main characters and three different scenarios. I like that extra buffer zone of the third thread that makes a smoother transition between two main lines.

The idea of multiple endings is what I picked out of today’s story, though I wasn’t up for magical realism which isn’t as easy as it looks. I cheated in using dreams as the vehicle for the different possibilities with a rather lighthearted story.

Flower Power

Steve’s story this morning was one of contemplation of the priorities of life, the value of material things and the weight of beliefs. It was a parable, a moral or message within the lure and entertainment of story that provokes deeper reflection.

What struck me was the image of the 70s and the hope of a new world of love and peace (and pot to help it along!) and how that message has been interpreted through the decades since.

The arrangement of the lexias, the narrative structure–which is mostly a series of unrelated incidents–seemed to cry for a circle, a cycle, and I was tempted to grant it no end. I may still play with the links; there was another direction to take.

Trying to catch my breath here between stories, and I’m sure most of the other participants are as well. I’m a slow writer when forced to come up with something (“Will you please be quiet?”) though when a story starts on its own it practically rolls itself out on my screen.

It’s been a learning process of the Tinderbox software which has been a tremendous blessing as a tool. I only wish I could have been more familiar with its closetful of features and could make better use of them instead of the learn when you need it under a 24-hour deadline to do it in manner that this project demands.

My own work has been a case of coming up with the concept of story after reading Steve Ersinghaus’ morning offering, working up a color theme that jives with the mood, renaming all code references to reflect the new story number and title (thank God for the timesaver Copy and Paste), start writing, make up a viable and enjoyable story, link and relink and recheck all the links, check spelling and typos, and then export the whole schmeer into html format into a file on the desktop (this is where I’d like to transfer the files into a Tinderbox shell but don’t have the time). From there, it’s adding necessary code to some of the .html files (which are the individual story pages) that sends the last page to the home pages on the site. I take an image of the Tinderbox map as a guide to the reader (and to pretty up the Hypercompendia posts) and Filezilla it all to the Lunar site server. From there I add the new post into the Hypertext Flash Fiction Page, then do a quick run through to make sure it all works before posting the new entry and make it available on the main home page.

And there’s where the problems may begin. It takes a while to go through checking links to make sure that all has been properly done. And it takes even longer to locate that missing “, or # or ; or http: or // or even the damned susangibb.net sometimes. Honest, the hardest one I’ve had to track down was a blank single space when I didn’t backspace it out during a copy and paste. And again and, because I’m obsessive compulsive all errors found at this stage are corrected in all three places: Tinderbox, html file on my hard drive, and the server file.

A few of the hypertexts I really like;  #3 Humankind, #6 Impressions, #8 Evilution, #14 Something Dark, #17 Smoke and Mirrors, #19 The Perfect Woman, #22 Wishes of Time, #23 Reflection, and #24 Everywhere, which are about the only ones I’d likely save and of course, further edit.  But there’s a purpose to each of the stories, and I’ve learned something new with each one.

And then it hits me: 74 more to go? Here are some thoughts from a few of the others at Steve’s post and at Mary Ellen’s.

The Inheritance

I tried to pull out plot, cause and effect, and a touch of mob mentality and that I found in today’s story and at the same time, place it against a current environment as Steve did bringing in twitter.

This one sort of turned into a jungle and I only pray that I have linked everything together so that the reader is not stranded in exile on an island.

Story’s there, but not grand and meaningful. There’s no moral to the tale except perhaps that some people react to a situation and rise to meet the challenge, while others plot to take the rewards away.