With two out of the three Hypertext stories that we were required to read, I saw a clear story line, with character development and a plot that was easy to follow. It was with the first hypertext, “My Boyfriend Came Back from the War,” that I couldn’t really find any of that, and it made it hard to follow. The way it was read was random and confusing, and at the end I was left with a bunch of blank boxes and no clear way to move forward. I still think that piece could be considered a story if read the right way, but it is a super abstract piece and has no linear way of reading it compared to “How to Rob a Bank” or “With Those We Love Alive.” I really enjoyed “How to Rob a Bank” because of how easy it was to read it and identify the plot and characters in the story, and it was cool to experience the story through what their phone is seeing. We see the two characters grow in their own way and the biggest change I saw was when their kid was born. We see through the notes app that the mother is in love with her child and is ready to settle down, which is a change from the ignorant woman that we saw at the beginning of the story who fell in love with this “bad-boy” bank robber. In “With Those We Love Alive”, the structure of the story is very non-linear, with each page of tet having multiple avenues that you can take to further the story. Many of these avenues loop back around, giving the reader a chance to understand the full story. I found this useful when exploring the different rooms of the palace/castle and getting a feel of what the world space of the story is like.

Yes, the computer has changed storytelling. However focusing on hypermedia, the popularity is lackluster. I believe a major problem that was only recently solved was that the most popular hypertext program was only compatible with Apple. With the creation of Twine hypermedia can now have a larger creator base, leading to more content that can potentially reach more users.

The best kind of stories that work with hypermedia are ones where the author wants the user to find the story, traditional stories can work but they are kind of clunky in their presentation.

“My Boyfriend Came Back from the War”
The navigation and eventual division of the screenspace was very interesting and was most interesting part of this work. There was definitely plot but any character development was lost in the medium. I couldn’t tell the chronological order of events except that the center division of the screen became the war events.

“How to Rob a Bank”
This was more directly a traditional story and was very linear. The use of showing the searches was a good way of showing us what the character was thinking about. I also enjoyed being able to use the arrow keys to transition forward and backward through the narrative.

“With Those We Love Alive”
This story is the type of story that I believe works best in a hypertext format. You can make choices to explore the environment and learn about the world somewhat organically. I especially liked the ability to influence the details of the story but that interaction wasn’t well explained.

I had a lot of fun making this video and I hope everyone enjoys it!

I would consider all three of these works to be stories. Although some are more linear than others, there is a plotline present in each one that is given to the audience in a unique way. I found “My Boyfriend Came Back from the War” to be the most confusing as the way it is presented requires the reader to deeply consider each line. I thought the imagery chosen for it, as well as the boxed format for most of the text, highlighted this element. While it was a little convoluted, I also found that this was part of what made the story engaging. “How to Rob a Bank” uses its format and music to draw you in quickly, although I had a few technical issues at the beginning that could drive casual users away. Out of the three, “With Those We Love Alive” has the strongest connection to the choose your own adventure genre. The layout and variety of options feels exactly like what an interactive story would have.

Each of the three stories contain a world for the reader to explore, but none of them do it the same way. “My Boyfriend Came Back from the War” and “With Those We Love Alive” represent this the most, as their storytelling is fragmented and requires the reader to actively investigate in order to discover each piece that, in the end, creates a picture. “How to Rob a Bank” follows a more linear process that audiences are more familiar with, but still combines it with digital mediums to provide a unique experience.

Altogether, I found these stories to be a great illustration of what you can do with imagination on the web. Between Twine and coding, there are a lot of ways to create a story that is unique and captivating to an audience. Regardless of the presentation, I would say that all three of these projects have interesting storylines with immense thought put behind them.

tommy o

Here is my Audio Visual Narrative:

Here is my Visual Narrative!

Hope ya’ll like it!

Sammy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqShdM826k0

tommy o

A simple answer is that these three works are stories. The most coherent world might be shown in “How to Rob a Bank,” which tells a story from multiple points of view that can be engaged with in any order. The two tracks I spent the most time with were the journal of Elizabeth and the Huffington Post submissions of Nancy. They were both subjective but were unified by the overarching idea of a couple robbing banks and its perceived impact. This fits easily into the idea of a linear narrative because the story does not change it just has various perspectives. I was not engaged by “My Boyfriend Came Back from the War.” Though it develops a sense of characters its navigation, which approaches randomness, is disjointed, and for me off-putting. So, I can say that work did not draw me in at all. Regardless, the fractured nature of the presentation does lead to a sense of brokenness which is perhaps the important current that flows through and unifies the work. “With Those We Love Alive” was trickier for me because I was engaged and explored more. The tricky part was I was hooked by the question/answer portion and, when the switch was made to a story, I was invested in exploring the world that was presented. The world building aspect of the work established simple and clear elements like the workshop and the temple. I explored some of these options until they were exhausted.

One important aspect of these works is that they are, for me, related to a chose-your-own-adventure book. I have seen other hypertext works that are exactly that. Those stories are interactive and rely on audience choice to complete the story beyond just a turn of the page. There is also a reliance on associative thinking in some of the early pre-web hypertext/hypermedia works that breaks away from what would be typical in most books that tell stories, as opposed to encyclopedias and dictionaries which are indexed. Although, in my experience of these later books I tend to go down the rabbit-hole of associative linking. Wikipedia is a good example of hypertext with associative linking in digital form.

Is linear sequencing important? I say yes. Whether it is clear or vague if there is no story, or perhaps even a simple theme, I doubt the work can be engaging. Even if the work is purely sound-based or purely visual there has to be a cause and effect that I can grasp or the work will be beyond me. Surprise as an effect is the same in that the surprise needs to be understandable or somehow able to be contextualized by the audience. In the end, if it’s a story it must communicate something. I think the three works did that.

I really do think that Hypertext Media are stories. Are they the normal stories that we tell by the campfire? No, they are so much different but in a great way. There are so many ways to go about writing digital narratives and so many paths to take! For example, My Boyfriend Came Back from the War is a perfect definition of using branching paths. There are so many ways of going throughout this world that Olia made! That is what makes the world feel so alive is the many different ways you can go and connect things together like string and tacks. Of course, you can also go with a more linear style of story. Take How to Rob a Bank. This story is definitely a more linear one but it has the interesting narrative and the way it tells it through a smart phone is just amazing. It’s like going through the mind of the main character. It’s almost like I am supposed to be the main character in the story! Lastly, With Those We Love Alive was so cool because of the imagery and choice based story telling. The text was so descriptive and it really put me in the world that the author made just through text. Also the use of choice and deciding where to go and what to do through text is something that can only be achieved on a digital format. Hypertext Media is definitely storytelling and a very unique kind at that. There are so many ideas and things you can do with it. With Digital Media, the sky is the limit.

tommy o

A very simple idea occurred to me after using AI to generate ideas for and parts of work. Tools leave marks.

We all understand this, it’s in our language when we say something like, “that looks handmade.” We appreciate the skillful use of thread and needle, the pushing of paint over canvas, and the capturing of light with a camera’s click. And, we accept there is process behind it all.

We recognize there are tools involved and then we forget about them. What we see then is the result that we engage with, the art. And, we strive to understand its purpose, its communication.

In time we will recognize AI tools exist and we will forget about them too when we engage with the stories that are told with them, the communication of the artist. This always happens. It is a piece of the power of storytelling in our nature. There will be new tools that we will marvel at, at first, and then forget them as wonders. Perhaps this is because we come to understand the mastery of tools, either our own or another’s.

Mastery is simply diligence: time and effort. AI tools are the same. Hundreds or thousands of prompts, variations, refinements, manipulations, and always the driving force of one’s desire to create, to assemble and communicate a thought, to tell someone something. I have spent hours and dollars exploring AI. I believe I will spend many more to understand the tools’ means of expression.

.We see the marks. The marks are not the work.

Hello everyone,

After checking out “My Boyfriend Came Back From The War,” I am a little bit confused on the story it was trying to tell. At one point I got the impression that the partner cheated on their boyfriend while they were deployed. There is a line that says something along the lines of “He was my neighbor” and shortly afterwards, there is the line “Forgive me.” that as well as some other lines gives me this impression.

As for whether or not this can be considered a story, technically yes. It’s sort of like a puzzle that readers have to fit together, as the story is not laid out in a direct and linear fashion like most stories do. It sort of reminds me of how games like Bioshock and Prey (2017) can tell stories. In both those games, there are audio logs scattered around the game’s map that can be listened to in different orders. Players will often listen to logs of overarching stories out of order, forcing them to piece together what happened in some of these audio logs.

I am kept engaged by these hyperlink stories because of the way that they uniquely present information to readers. It is different than a traditional book or movie and it feels more interactive.

I was very disappointed that I did not learn how to rob a bank from the second story. Oh well. This story uses its navigation structure of simply pressing on the spacebar to transition you through a linear story, allowing you to read it at your own pace. The linear sequencing is clear.

– Gibson