Hypertext over Print

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The non-linear nature of hypertext fiction can express more than print can due to the nature of randomness and the arbitrary connections readers create while reading a nonlinear story. Randomness refers to mathematically random sequences, made possible by programming. The word arbitrary refers to decisions or connections made for no specific reason or a not necessarily relevant reason, decisions made by a human. When a story is reordered and put into a nonlinear form that can be regenerated again and again through the use of programming, the reader makes sense of the story in different ways every time. New stories can be formed in the mind of the reader with the same text be formed in different orders, or by new text being created and inserted into a preexisting story. The hyperlinked nature of electronic literature allows viewers to “choose their own adventure” combining the random aspect of programming with the arbitrary nature of the reader’s choices, allowing the story to be rewritten in almost an infinite number of ways.

Electronic literature’s uses the properties of a computer, programmability and the network, creates literature that could not exist in print

Hypertext 2

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Hypertext storytelling is an interesting approach to telling stories. The idea of multi-linearity and non-linearity present incredible potential for great stories, and there have been many stories that are compelling and interesting. “Patchwork Girl” by Shelly Jackson for example which was inspired by the classic “Frankenstein” represent how effective hypertext storytelling can be. With all of this potential though, hypertext storytelling wasn’t as revolutionary as some had thought. This happened for different reasons, one being the fact that nonlinear reading, as explained by Steven Johnson, is incredibly hard to write.

“When you tried to make an argument or tell a journalistic story in which any individual section could be a starting or ending point, it wound up creating a whole host of technical problems, the main one being that you had to reintroduce characters or concepts in every section.”

This issue is just one example but it is representative of some of the problems with hypertext. Another example can be seen in “afternoon, a story.” The story is well written and it has interesting characters, but it is incredibly hard to follow with jumping perspectives and just its nonlinear nature. I understand the idea is to explore the story and figure out what happened but because of its format and structure, it is more frustrating than engaging. Of course this isn’t to say that it is a bad hypertext story, it was one of the earlier stories told through hypertext so of course it wasn’t going to be perfect.

Hypertext also has the problem of hardware as pointed out by Robert Coover discussed. Hardware limitations and introduction of new technology have caused some hypertext stories to become unavailable, only accessible through old technology which use old technologies like floppy discs.

Hypertext is certainly not a dead form of storytelling or a bad one, there are still communities that exist like Twine for example, which give users the ability to create incredible multi-linear and non-linear hypertext stories. I think that hypertext has shown the power of nonlinear and multilinear stories and its influence can be felt in many different modern methods of storytelling. It certainly didn’t bring the death of books as Robert Coover suggested in his article, an idea which has not aged well. Traditional storytelling that comes from books will never go away, nor should it.

 

The Future of Hypertext

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I think that hypertext has several advantages that print does not. Print is limited by its own physical space. A book with a large enough amount of information could become uncomfortable to read without splitting the text into multiple volumes. Larger pieces of hypertext fiction would not be as enjoyable to read in a print form because the book required to hold them would be too large and tedious to navigate. The ability to directly link to another page is key to keeping the experience as clear and simple as possible. The definition of hyper text is literally

the writing done in the nonlinear or nonsequential space made possible by the computer.

The digital aspect also lends a lot of extra interactivity that print does not. While print is made up of only letters, pictures, and the pages they are printed on, hypertext fiction has the potential for greater reader participation. I would say that hypertext fiction lends itself well to digital games. There are many games today that are less action based and more decision and story driven. The decisions in these games, such as Life is Strange, The Last of Us, and The Wolf Among Us, determine which part of the story the user gets to experience which is fairly similar to the links within hypertext.

I think hypertext fiction has a broad future because of the different opportunities to experiment within its form. The population of the world today is also becoming more and more digital native, so the clicking of links is almost an innate response when interest is sparked. With a natural understanding of linking and a passion for storytelling more and more new and innovative hypertext fiction will be produced. While most of what I’m saying in this post aligns with Robert Coover’s point of view from “The End of Books”, I do believe that books will continue to be utilized by humans for centuries. Books have a continuous stream of knowledge that take even less effort to read than hypertext fiction. When it comes to people they usually like to do whatever takes the least amount of effort at any given time.

The Future of Hypertext Fiction

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I believe that there is a growing interest in the complexities of human interaction and society. I also think that there is a growing interest in our future. I think that hypertext fiction perfectly encompasses these interests. Before even becoming aware and versed with hypertext fiction, I was a fan of the Netflix series, “Black Mirror”. This series explores human consequences, and especially the consequences of modern day technology. The Netflix show has quite the fan base, and has even inspired other works. I believe this show highlights the emerging interest in human consequences and technology. I find it especially entertaining to delve and explore those consequences when they aren’t personally affecting me. It’s interesting to talk about the “what if?”. I have also seen an emergence in this theme in video gaming. The widely popular game, “Red Dead Redemption 2”, follows the storyline of an outlaw. The player, although following a set storyline, can make decisions for the character to determine their morality, and the way that the story plays out. Hypertext fiction is a very exploratory genre that I believe follows these trends. It allows the reader to make decisions, explore consequences as an outsider, explore technology, and explore the complexities of human nature and thinking. The Netflix show “Black Mirror”, in particular, recently came out with a film. This film called, “Bandersnatch”, is a branching, but mostly linear story, that the audience can control through prompts and their television remote. In the article, “Why No One Clicked on the Great Hypertext Story”, by Steven Johnson, Johnson explores the evolving of Hypertext fiction. He says that our internet tendencies, like reading a blog, or following links in a news article, follows a hypertext format.

Although following along a similar thread, true hypertext fiction of nonlinear, branching and linking story-telling, have become more obsolete. Even in the instances of “Black Mirror”, and “Red Dead Redemption 2”, these narratives follow a general linear path and generally move forward in the narrative with each decision. In “Afternoon, a Story” by Michael Joyce, the narrative although having a base linear story, often take spindling directions that can land you in the beginning, middle, or end of the story. “Afternoon, a Story”, also incorporates the challenge of multiple character’s viewpoints that further complicates the story.

Johnson states in his piece that, “It turned out that nonlinear reading spaces had a problem: They were incredibly difficult to write.” This statement seems to predict the way that Johnson believes hypertext fiction will continue to evolve. Although Hypertext fiction certainly follows developments in current trends, I believe that linear fiction will certainly win out. The evolved version of hypertext fiction that follows a primarily linear path, such as the “Black Mirror” movie, “Bandersnatch”, is what I believe will remain popular. The link-structure, nonlinearity and fragmentation of hypertext can certainly express more of human nature, human thought processes, and human consequence, although I believe it’s cousin of linearity, will continue to remain more popular.

The Future of Hypertext

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Image result for hypertext

With the emergence of hypertext in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, it was seen as both the end of print culture as well as a precursor for the future of how information would be viewed and consumed on the web. In a sense, it served as a bridge from how we used to read information, both fictional and factual, to how we currently do so.

Hypertext certainly allows for the opportunity to express in ways which are limited by print. Shelley Jackson states in regards to her work Patchwork Girl that she thinks in things arranged in a place, and the use of hypertext allows for her to create in a way that is more conducive to her creative method. Additionally, the in class reading of “afternoon, a story” exemplified how many pathways one may take while reading a work of hypertext fiction. While navigating through the story, the reader may gain a plethora of different perspectives based on how they choose to navigate through the story in a way that is clear and concise, something that is not possible with a printed work.

While social media has pushed aside the use of hypertext as of late, the re-emergence of hypertext through platforms such as Twine has allowed for authors to re-explore how hypertext can be used to form an intriguing story through a simple and usable interface. Furthermore, web users familiarizing themselves with social media has in turn familiarized them with hypertext. Referring back to Shelley Jackson, she states:

“Regular web-users already understand implicitly how to read a hypertext; they may not be accustomed to thinking about what they’ve just read as akin to novels and stories, but they will”.

The concept of how hypertext works is a familiar concept understood by the common web-user, which in turn will allow for non-linear storytelling through hypertext to regain prominence in today’s world.

Sources: “Stitch Bitch: The Hypertext Author As Cyborg-Femme Narrator”, Mark Amerika

Change is only a matter of Time: Hypertext

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The change from traditional text to hypertext has only happened in the past decade with the advent of the medium as a whole. While hypertext new to the realm of storytelling I don’t think it will have as much of an impact as traditional books did. the use of hypertext has changed our culture and world really, like what was stated in Rettberg how hypertext introduced multilinearity to society. All of us in class grew up with the traditional book but have all learned how to use and interact with hypertext. this doesn’t mean that we all like one or the other better but it will be interesting to see younger generations as they grow up with both forms of storytelling what they will gravitate towards. whether we will all but abandon the traditional style of storytelling or if there will be a balance that happens. the latter is more likely. As well as how we interact with hypertext will change in time and who knows where it will go.

 

The Potential of Hypertext

jredman17

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)

 

The Future of Hypertext

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I think that there is a promising future for hypertext fiction as a literary form. Culturally, we have begun expressing our “stories” and thoughts in a form of hypertext through social media platforms. An individual tweet or post can stand alone with cryptic meaning, much like fragments of hypertext, however, when they are put together, they can form a complete story that has an intended meaning or message. I think that because we are getting so used to seeing stories revealed this way that our minds are having an easier time deciphering fragmented text in this fashion.

Author Shelley Jackson mentions in an interview that with hypertext, she was able to write her stories like Patchwork Girl without “imposing a linear order” to the narrative.

“Hypertext makes it easy to place things side by side, rather than one after another, so it makes “thing” and “place” metaphors much easier. I guess you could say 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.”

I feel like this allows for the narrative to be expressed and experienced in a way that printed stories cannot. Stories that also diverge and meet like some hypertexts do would be much more difficult to achieve in the print world. The use of multimedia elements that are included in hypertext narrative also add an enhanced experiential element to a story that print cannot. Hypertext has the potential affordances of giving the consumer the abilities to make choices that influence the progression of the narrative, to select alternate endings, or to have an entirely new experience of the story each time it is read. While I would say that this isn’t impossible to achieved in print, it is not typically done.

Print vs. Hypertext

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“The difference between reading hyperfiction and reading traditional printed fiction may be the difference between sailing the islands and standing on the dock watching the sea. One is not necessarily better than the other.”

-Carolyn Guyer and Martha Petry Izme Pass

I liked this quote in the reading’s this week. I don’t think we can really say that either of these forms of writing will die out. Both of them have their own place in the literary world. While print may seem like the slow and steady that wins the race, hypertext is the one coming up with multiple paths the race could take.

As technology changes hypertext does too, with new ways to tell the story. With recent uses of hypertext in television and video games, one wonders what the next step is for it?

I think that hypertext does have something different to contribute, that gives a unique experience to the reader. If it’s a nonlinear story the reader has the choice to go back and change the ending if they don’t prefer the one that they got. Or just go back and see what were the other possibilities.

In the reading Why no one clicked on the great hypertext story, I liked how it highlighted the growing hypertext writing that is being seen on different social platforms. In one of my other classes, we talked about this platform, where people come and add to these time travel/ romance themed stories. The stories take crazy turns, but it is a very popular space that people come to share ideas.

My only concern with hypertext along with print is the waning attention span that we seem to have when it comes to reading. It seems that most people take in their stories and information through five-minute clips on the internet. I think the question that needs to be addressed is will society still be willing to take the time to discover these works?

The Death of Print?

Joel Clapp

It can be easy to say that books and print are an outdated technology, a still living artifact of the past that we will soon leave behind. The possibilities afforded us in the digital age certainly seem to leave old print media in the dust., at least at first glance.

Digital media is so much easier to store, allowing you to carry an entire library in your pocket, and still have room for your movies, music, and video games. Physical storage itself is hardly even an issue anymore as cloud computing allows us to store our files online and stream our videos from subscription services. In fact, less and less it seems like ownership and possession of a thing is what our culture values, opting instead for a steady I.V. drip of access to cyberspace where we aren’t land owners, we’re tenants.

Beyond storage, consider the way that digital media can be so seamlessly and naturally integrated into pieces of hypermedia. One moment you’re reading a piece of prose, the next a video plays, sounds run in the background, and interactive elements can be dropped in. The potential of electronic media is astounding compared to old print media. Even the branching narrative structure available in a basic HyperText project provides so many more tools for the creator to utilize.

Why then, decades later, are books still a thing? We’re starting to see textbooks in the classroom replaced with netbooks and tablets, brick and mortar bookstores are endangered, newspaper and magazine services struggle in a post-print era, but books are still going strong. There are several things that print does have going for it that digital media does not.

For one, print is self-contained. If you have a piece of print media, you don’t need any other device to use it. You don’t need to worry about backwards compatibility, if a file format is still supported, if you have batteries, if a part breaks and replacements are no longer being made. This gives books a staying power that digital media struggles with; technology almost seems to be moving too fast to take a lasting hold. Until more universal standards and the certainty of future compatibility is assured, people will still have a reluctance in giving up completely on print.

Another important thing for many people is the physical experience of the book. While digital media can provide countless opportunities for creators, some things still can’t be fully replicated in digital media. I consider a book sitting on my shelf, S. by by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams (pictured above). In much the same way that e-literature can incorporate other forms of media, this book contains numerous other objects tucked between the pages, from vintage photographs to post cards and more. The amazing thing about this creative piece is that it is actually more than just the book. The book itself, titled The Ship of Theseus, is written by a fictional character called V.M. Straka. The story of S. unfolds not just in the prose of the book, but in the notes written in the margins and the objects tucked inside the book. Much like a  non-linear HyperText project, it falls on the reader to unravel the connections between the notes, objects, and the text of the book itself. Made to look like a released library book, even including a “Property of…” stamp and Dewey decimal sticker on the spine, everything about the project lends itself to feeling like an object that the reader could have found at an old book sale. The texture of the cover, the faux-faded pages of the book make an experience that can’t quite be replicated digitally.

While books like S. are certainly an unusual case, it isn’t hard to find a book lover who enjoys the experience of reading and owning a physical artifact, just like people who collect vinyl or go to community theater. Media goes beyond the content of simply the words, but the entire experience. As Marshall McLuhan said, the media is the message. Does HyperText and digital media offer new opportunities for unique and exciting experiences? Yes. Should they be explored and value as much as any other technology? Of course. Will they replace print completely? Maybe someday, but not anytime soon.

3 – Hypertext fiction

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I would have to agree that hypertext fiction does not appear to be as prevalent in today’s era of social media. I admit I was not even aware of hypertext fiction until this class. However, considering what we have experienced and read in class and for assignments thus far, I do hope that hypertext fiction is able to maintain a presence amongst social media. As a writer by hobby, it inspired an angle of creativity that I had never experienced before, the idea of hierarchies, and linking parts to each other. Shelley Jackson spoke of having bits and pieces of her works, characters, and drawings, and just hoping to find a connection between any of them, and when nothing clicked, she would mix it all up and try again. I understood where her approach came from, as I myself often begin just by writing anything and everything that comes straight to mind of what I think I know, however, my brain then thinks far too linearly and tries to make sense of an idea I already had when I started. Hypertext fiction, I think, brings to a writer’s mind firstly, the many layers that can be used and how infinite the hierarchy of a story can be, given all the routes one can take. Secondly, the idea of linking sections together is can speak to the story and its characters itself (“The medium is the message”). The method that Jackson mentioned has a way of jumbling up the conventional and sometimes automatic, or cliche, and that is something that this era needs, where often our words are limited to 200 characters (or whatever it is now). Not that I would consider a single “Tweet” as hypertext fiction, but my generation has gotten so used to that way of communicating that hypertext fiction can continue to bring inspiration, and hope it does.

The Future of Hypertext

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It has come to my opinion that Hypertext Fiction is unique in a way that let’s the reviewers or the readers think. And really think hard about the decisions that has to be made throughout the journey that they are going on. Whether it’s print or digital it has the potential to have us stop and think about if our choice was correct or not.

The choices or even the action that we do make us believe about the ominous outcome of the situation that we where put in and let us to believe that in the end… no choice is 100% good.

The future of Hypertext Fiction, to me, is a little bit unclear at this point. I do believe that Hypertext Fiction is a very well-known genre of storytelling that has the potential to go much further then it is at. For years hypertext Fiction has been growing in books as well as digital media but not necessarily in it’s own form but more of

“Instead of prospering as a specific genre in it’s own right, elements of hypertext have opened up new forms and genres. Complex multilinear narrative structures have for example become standard fare in long-term episodic television series.”

So in conclusion I do believe, in a literal sense, Hypertext Fiction can continue making a huge impact on all of us even if it’s in forms of other types of media but thanks to this program called Twine. everybody can bring there multilinear imaginations to life and expand as far as they want to go.

Sources:

Image caught from “Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Season Two”

Image caught from “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch”

Scott Rettberg’s “Electronic Literature”