I grew up mainly reading conventional books under parents that really pushed traditional print material. I was fascinated by how in kids’ books, the words and pictures were directly connected to one another. Both paint an image of what the characters are doing and how they look. Still very early on in my life I was introduced to pc software and went on to interact with both print and digital stories for a while. As I have gotten older though, digital stories have taken over my life. Video games especially have been my go-to for the most immersive stories and worlds. Honestly, print-based media has been relegated to text books for me. I believe the potential of the print-based media itself has reached its full potential. Actual stories themselves though have all the potential in the world. Hypertext and the digital medium in general can provide elements for a story that print cannot. Hypertext can surprise readers through links and present them with changing environments through pictures, video and sound. There could be a real social aspect and the stories can be updated with new additional chapters and other content. If someone feels that print is too limited for their story, they may find the affordances of digital hypertext to be a better suit and let out their creativity that way.
“I want my fiction to be more like a world full of things that you can wander around in, rather than a record or memory of those wanderings.”(Jackson)