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Underground > Creation >

Hypertext Fiction

13:03 / 17.08.01

so.. erm.. here I am planning my sprawling multimedia epic which will save my life and make me sexually attractive again...

anyway. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with creating hypertext works, or has enjoyed any such novels/stories in the past? Or does anyone feel the genre is fundamentally flawed? I want to get a handle what can be done with the format, and as you all know, a Barbelith opinion is always useful

14:28 / 17.08.01

there was a hypertext novel as one of the set text of my course at uni (can't remember the name or the author something about bodies) which provoked an unfavourable reactions from most undergrads because they couldn't take it home and read it...

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:32 / 17.08.01

Bit tangential, but this is a page of resources based around Janet Murray's Hamlet On The Holodeck, which is - apparently - the work on hyperfiction. Even more tangentially, this page suggests the use of interactive fiction tools (ie: the same sort of parser that games like Zork et al used) in a similar way. It's interesting, if you've the time. Salon covered HF here, and there's a page of info about the viability of the medium here.

I simply haven't done enough in the area to give anything other than links, though I'd like that to change...

16:18 / 20.08.01

Thank's for the links, Rothkoid.

I'm not sure what my opinion of Zork, text adventure is in this context - where does the line between non-linear fiction stop and a "game" begin. I have, the maybe deluded, opinion, that the author needs to keep a certain amount of reader passivity in his work, to inject meaning and such, but then again, maybe that's just a fantasy of control.

Been also thinking recently about the potential of the web as a vehicle for found media - literature verite(?!??!) - and I think that trends in the media have tended to bear a fascination with this kind of thing out - Blair Witch, the AI webgame, Danielewski's House of Leaves.

I don't know if anyone has used this in a fictional sense yet, I'd be delighted if someone could inform me if anyone has.

Lost in a Moon Puddle

17:29 / 20.08.01

Eastgate are a good source for "serious" hypertext fiction, from essays, to software, education opportunities to award-winning published works. I've dabbled around their site in my "on again/off again" fascination with the concept of hypertext fiction. It's intertesting, all the structural possibilities with HF: fiction as architecture.

"Literature veritae" - I've been obsessing over this for a while now. I think of it as kind of a "Hyperfiction", fiction that bleeds over into reality. Grant obviously played with this in the "Invisbles", and there are beginning to be many other experimenters, like the ones you mentioned (I loved House of Leaves and the first Blair Witch). Joseph Matheny has been doing this for at least ten years with the Incunabula thing, and his new company Metalepsis is going to be publishing hybrid DVD's - movies with weblinks embedded in them. EA's new game Majestic is running in this direction as well.

I'd love to do something along these lines.

The Return Of Rothkoid

18:37 / 20.08.01

Dee: not so much pushing the game angle, but some of the systems used in the creation thereof seem to be pretty neat, and could be adapted for fictional control fairly easily - particularly HTML-TADS, which is a parser with HTML capabilities; some authors seem to be pushing more towards narrative rather than puzzles.

In addition - have you read Geoff Ryman's 253? This seems to be along the lines you're exploring...

18:56 / 20.08.01

Yeah, I have dipped into 253 before. It's Ok. I've never really perceived it as a "hypertext novel" before you pointed it out. Which is bizarre, because it so evidently is.

???

Oh, Rothkoid, thanks again for the HTML-TADS info. This looks really useful. You are truly an internet oracle

[ 20-08-2001: Message edited by: Dee Vapr ]