Hypercompendia

I’ve been working in Tinderbox and Storyspace for literary purposes for a few years now. I’ve had a hypertext story published in The New River Review and my 100 Days Project of 100 Hypertext stories has been listed in the Electronic Literature Organization Directory. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Towards what goal? Well, to spread the word, to gain audience, to prove that hypertext is coming of age in a world where reading is done to a great degree online, and where hypertext literature is not only perfect for the times, it is ahead of them yet oddly it remains largely unacknowledged by both academia and the general reading population.

What then, to do? Make it lovable. So that’s the project. Here’s the start:

From personal experience, including my own baptism into hypertext waters, and here, years later, reading the reaction of students being exposed to the medium, I’ve got to admit that the initial reaction is generally either “Yuck, I don’t see its purpose, it’s confusing” or “Wow, that’s great (but I’ll never read another one after this course is over).” So then the problem appears to be primarily in its introductory phase.

There are two problems here that I see. First, not all university courses include a new media course or even much of an inclusion in their literary courses. Secondly, since hypertext is supposedly a break from traditional reading (how is that, when links are clicked to read online so often that there’s a perceptible new “white noise” hum in the atmosphere?) it’s bound to hit resistance. Folks like ease and speed these days. Hypertext is not necessarily meant to be read fast and easy. Reading literature itself should be tough, unless we’re seeking mindless, non-demanding entertainment. And escapism for its own sake is fine; I do it all the time, only not in hypertext literature.

This is an undertaking that I’m hot on, have been for years, yet never had time to kick off. Now, I’m going to make it a part of my daily writing. It will of necessity include some team effort, people who are more skilled with the medium and have the technological know-how to produce what I clearly cannot. That’s all a part of the plan.

Then again, am I being too pushy in my attempts to be helpful? Maybe. So what?

Would that it could mean what it sounds like, but not so.

In my pile of “Learn How To Do” has been the element of using stretchtext in a piece, and while I’ve got several places to learn it from, my mind unfortunately hasn’t quite grasped the concept of how it is actually accomplished. It’s a string of code that goes…someplace. Surely in the CSS itself, but also with references within the templates themselves in the particular spot where it’s needed (or wanted; stretchtext is no more needed than much else in life besides food and water and sex).

What I’m going to do then, is quit fiddling around and draw it from the back of my head to the forefront, somewhere just behind my third eye (why–don’t you have one?) and set up the project today to start seriously working on it. Easier then, to start with a piece already written and the perfect one for this is A Bottle of Beer, one of my longtime favorites that I’d written a few years ago, first at Hypertextopia, then into Storyspace which I much prefer of course because of its potential. I don’t have it in Tinderbox, but that may be the first move I make just because I’m more familiar now with this incredible program.

Noticed the ivy on the back patio this morning and thought of how it mimicked hypertext threads of narrative. Clockwise, from top left, the vines run parallel to each other, all streaming towards a goal. In the top right, there is the obvious split-off of story trail by this group into three different directions. Bottom right is the recalcitrant loner who, perhaps allergic to stone, prefers to employ the woody stems of the evergreen where he, and he alone, climbs up to the top and surveys the arena as if, by magical realism, he is the most normal of ivy. In the bottom left, we have a group that’s energetic and on the prowl. A story that by choice may climb, crawl, split steps in its advance towards a conclusion.

Then of course it dawned on me; ivy is not following hypertextual narrative process, but rather, hypertext is an example of a process that is naturally occurring in nature.

Okay, so maybe this is merely one of those “susan” moments.

I’m always thrilled when literary hypertext is published, particularly by a magazine that isn’t driven by new media. What I mean is that by including hypertext pieces among their static text offerings, the magazine not only displays an open-minded attitude towards alternative presentation, it widens the potential audience  by exposing literary enthusiasts of traditional story and poetry to a different form.

Dorothee Lang, writer, photographer, artist, and editor of the Blue Print Review, teamed with Karyn Eisler, another multi-talented artist in many mediums, and Karyn’s brother Lawrence Eisler, an illustrator and designer in new media, for  a hypertext poem that’s visually exciting  and well planned out.

Published in the current issue of Wheelhouse, (R)Evolution is a journey that allows the reader to choose the narrative path. As Dorothee explains it,in comparing it to a piece called Poptagon which was published at Locus Novus:

Poptagon had a linear structure: every page leads to a defined next page.
(R)Evolution, in contrast, has “crossing”-pages that come with a choice, with options for the way to take. the curious thing is that there in fact is only 1 main “crossing”, and 2 sub-“crossings” – it’s really a simple hypertext form. yet when working on it, it took a sketch to be able to keep track of the structure, even though the whole thing consists of “only” 7 pages, plus title and ending pages.

The piece begins in a garden which the speaker compares to a shopping mall, where the flowers are selected by occasion, where she stands at the ready with shears prepared to clip blooms. This notion of choice is mimicked by the concept of hypertext where a choice can be given, a decision can be made, but an interaction with the piece is required of the reader.

The question of choices brings questions, the gardening bringing to mind the relationships with others. The metaphors in the piece extending flowers into words, manipulated again in the same manner as this hypertext piece.

The different pages of the poem are painted in visuals that are bold and contemporary. Here the text is designed into the image, enhancing and reinforcing the movement of the piece. Circular, forcing the reader to adopt an entirely new pattern of reading than the norm, sideways, mimicking stems or offshouts of the main stem–another shout-out to hypertext form. This piece takes readers out of the comfort zone into a more interesting and easy enough to negotiate concept.

A really beautiful collaborative effort by these talented folk that I thoroughly enjoyed reading, and I’m so pleased to spread the word.

I recently started editing some of the hypertext stories I’d written last summer as part of the 100 Days Project. One of the things that I’ve done is add in an image of the mapping of the story to help guide those who are new to hypertext reading and may become frustrated. It’s also sort of a learning tool, I suppose. And yes, I’m also driven by that evil gene within some writers and artists that wants the reader to read all of the words so lovingly placed there; wants him to appreciate the perfect symmetry of the design. So what?

Well in doing so, it occurred to me that it would be nice to allow the reader to select the point at which he wishes to return to the story, to see the path not taken and plunk himself down on it. With the old Storyspace reader, one may do so, follow the trail and go back–though I don’t believe the map image is shown. But we’re talking html on a website here. I have placed the map at the end of the stories (those I’ve gotten to so far), and while I’ve used a couple different ways of presenting it, the options at that point are usually to a) go back to the beginning of the piece, b) go back to the last page, or c) exit the piece. Wouldn’t it be great to offer d) a specific point within the plot?

Which brings me to, how would one do it?

Yes, I can link from an image to another lexia, but from points within the image? It seems that it should be easy enough with a map that shows boxes and words–just make a text link. (Though I work in Tinderbox now, rather than Storyspace, and so far, images aren’t a part of the plan.) But it doesn’t work that way; that’s not what shows up in html. It’s been done on the web of course, but I believe that’s done in Flash or some other manner. I’ve been told that much can be achieved by jQuery, HTML5, and CSS3. Guess it’s time to start checking that out, perhaps find a class somewhere so it doesn’t take me quite so long to learn it all.

Like everything else in my personal experience, the answer is out there and sought, once the question comes to mind.

On the 100 Days Project, Steve Ersinghaus is writing a fiction a day to match John Timmons’ videos. His pieces aren’t all necessarily stories but rather concepts and scenes and characters that pop in and out. Today’s piece is a visual map of a hypertext and it really is cool: the generic path protocol

I first became aware of the Electronic Literature Organization either in a Contemporary Literature class or New Media and have visited it now and then, mostly to find some new pieces along with the classics. There hadn’t been a lot of new input added in the resources or the literary works in the last few years but that seems to have changed lately, with a more concerted effort to find and add new work to the ELO Directory.

Scene II: I’ve got a hundred hypertext pieces on my hands from last summer’s 100 Days Project and while the whole thing was a learning process and some still would benefit from some editing, I would like to have them read. That is, after all, the reason we writers write. I’d considered publishing the body of work as a whole, either on an updated, dedicated site or on DVD and for the past years, I’ve submitted a few of them that I thought were particularly good whether for story or form, reworked with images or presentation but had little success. It’s a hard sell, despite the fact that most literary journals are online these days and if ever the time is right for hypertext, it’s now. Hypertext demands a reader’s attention; not all editors trust their readers I guess.

Scene III: I realized today that this body of work has been reviewed and listed at the ELO Directory and this just made the whole project and the work and time involved more than a creative exercise and hypertext learning process. I am positively thrilled, knowing that there is a permanent spot for my work on the ELO bookshelf and that the stories have a good chance at being read over the years by new media enthusiasts.

Another of my pieces, Blueberries which was published by The New River Review, is at the Directory and I’m in the company of some great talent and great friends like Steve Ersinghaus, Diane Greco, Alan Bigelow, Dorothee Lang and of course, the writers I studied, Montfort, Joyce, Moulthrop, Jackson and more. I’m honored and just plain happy.

Added note: Mark Bernstein has an excellent post on the Directory and makes some good points about some classic hypertext pieces that should be there. I’d say that his collaboration with Greco, Reading Hypertext, would be a welcome if not necessary addition as well.

Been playing in Tinderbox the last few days, trying to update the Literary Endeavors file with all current submissions–both straight and hypertext, stories and poetry–and it’s intensive. This is only because I’m backtracking with hundreds of bits of data from emails, spreadsheets, bookmarks and their websites, that have accumulated over the past maybe six months actively, though some of the info is on older stories and such that were sent out in spurts of ambition over the past few years, with years in between.

I’m caught up to a point that tells me a few things. One, the design of the Tinderbox file changes with the input; while I loved the threads of links from work to venue and luckily, was smart enough not to put return trails for all replies, a pattern established itself that proved itself to be the best way of keeping track of things at a glance at the mapview. This set a new method of linking submission to publisher.

What I’ve decided on now is to link from the story box to the venue via the publisher’s name, and including the name of the story within the publisher’s box. Doing it this way, I can see exactly how many and which stories are out there awaiting replies. When a reply comes in, the link is either deleted (with the date entered within the boxes) or turned into a happy bold red acceptance link from publisher to story.

Another thing this mapview tells me at a glance is that I don’t currently have much in the pipeline!

So here comes the next project on the agenda: to write, rewrite, throw away into the black hole, or send out, some stuff. The most important will be rewriting–and this includes the hypertext pieces that were done over last summer. It’s hard to find a home for a hypertext; so until these have been placed somewhere in some form, I discounted the initial idea of writing a hundred more this summer for the 100 Days Project. On the other hand, the discipline of a deadline worked for me…

Which means that while not a part of it, I’ll possibly be setting up a goal for myself to do X every day (for a grand total of 100 Xs) alongside the project–just outside the fence. What I’m thinking of now is either a hypertext poem (short and easy) or a short story a day, just enough to leave time for two other concepts I’ve been putting off–stretchtext and another flash piece or a movie.

And, of course, the garden, reading, and sitting around drinking wine.

This in, a link to what Steve Ersinghaus had spent 24 hours working on at the Tunxis Art Marathon.

Though I crept out at daybreak, just three hours short of completing the Tunxis 24-hour Arts Marathon (I’d run out of creative juice and was feeling a bit grumpy) I did manage to complete a new hypertext story during the first half of the session. Thanks to all who participated, and particularly Carianne Mack Garside for hosting this annual event which for the first time included a gallery classroom for creative writers along with the art, sculpture, and photography which drew the largest number of students. And of course to Professors Steve Ersinghaus and Jesse Abbot who oversaw the writing division, and fellow writers, Dan, Nick, Trent, Megan, and others who drifted in and out to spend some time writing and sharing. Steve did quite a bit of work on a new novel that he’s been considering, Jesse wrote a poem and recorded a great audio I hope to find online soon, and I know that Nick, Trent, Dan, and Megan were close to completing their own short stories and animations during this period.

So I offer now, since I couldn’t upload it online direct from campus, and after a couple hours’ sleep:

On The Very Last Day, He Imploded