A generation of cyberwriters–inspired by the theories of Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson and other pioneers in the field of computer science, and as comfortable manipulating the 0s and 1s of computer programming as they are manipulating nouns and verbs (if not more so)–are experimenting with creating fiction and poetry intended for the computer screen rather than the printed page.
This writing, called hypertext long before there was a World Wide Web, attempts to share narrative control with the reader, who can click onto any page without conforming to any linear order intended by the person who created the hypertext. The key creative problem in building impressive literary hypertexts, such as Michael Joyce’s “Afternoon” and Stuart Moulthrop’s “Victory Garden” (both published by Eastgate Systems), is delivering a satisfactory reading experience, including tension and closure. Aristotle’s rules in “Poetics” have worked well for 23 centuries; the advent of the World Wide Web shouldn’t be enough to repeal them.
The hypertext way of experiencing and describing events in art isn’t that new. Groundbreaking alinear fictions like Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Garden of Forking Paths” and Vladimir Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” emphasize that, even without computer screens, we live in a hypertext world where random information dances across our consciousness and then disappears, where digressions may never link back to the main subject. Even the Modern Library’s newly crowned English-language book of the century, James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” aims to capture the interior of a working mind and heart as closely and intensely as any of the experiments now going on on-line.
The genius modernists aside, most great fiction is linear; computer programs aren’t. Hypertext may be a superb organizing principle for many kinds of information, but attempts to use it for fiction generally haven’t worked well on the Web, at least not yet. This is in part because the tools aren’t up to the task yet. The leading one, Eastgate’s Storyspace, hasn’t become enough of a standard to warrant widespread use, and the current generation of Web-building tools is geared for designers and programmers, not writers.
Some technically adept writers have abandoned the more common tools and built their own programs, thus increasing dramatically the amount of time it takes to write a hypertext work. Because constructing solid hypertexts is so difficult, and because the field is still so new, most hypertexts are about hypertext, showing off multiple links and lack of linearity without bothering to use those tools to tell stories. (It’s as if all the early TV shows were about wires and vacuum tubes.)
Yet it’s an expected reflex on the part of hypertext writers, because when they’re working with their computers they’re thinking about all the different things they can do with them. That may be what makes reading literary hypertext on a screen so difficult for the most part: So much else is competing for attention. Hypertext writers need tools that make it impossible for a reader to do anything other than read the work while it’s open. When a hypertext reader looks at a Storyspace project in progress, the project is competing for space with several other open programs, the “Start” button and icons at the bottom of the screen, and all the keys, pads and sliders on the computer. When you read a book, there is no real distraction on the page (unless you like to read page numbers). To be successful, hypertexts must be as immersive as print media.
A big part of immersion is knowing when it’s over and you can come up for air. It’s not the writer who creates closure in hypertexts, it’s the reader. One of the promising things about the better hypertext poems like Judy Malloy’s “Its Name Was Penelope” is that it generates random pages that add up to fascinating patterns or allows readers to create their own narrative and connections as they go along. Every time you read it, it’s a different story. The reader decides when the text is over. That’s what a successful work of hypertext-based literature can do that paper-based writing can’t: share power.
PLUGGING IN TO HYPERTEXT ON THE WEB
The World Wide Web is stuffed with examples, good and bad, of literary hypertext and of experts (often the same people) commenting on the still-amorphous form. Here are the best places to start your investigations into the subject:
Eastgate Systems produces the hypertext-building program Storyspace and publishes many overtly literary hypertexts. The company is on the Web at www.eastgate.com.
Long before any writer had ever heard of the Internet, a small company called Infocom developed a series of text-based games that offer a level of wit and interactivity that most of today’s pieces are lacking. A fan site at www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/ lets you download some of the most popular Infocom games. If you want to try your hand at writing any Infocom-style games, you can explore a tool called Inform at www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/ 8200/overview.htm.
Many practitioners of literary hypertext are collaborating; one of the most impressive was a promotional “Greatest Tale Ever Told” contest, in which John Updike wrote the first and last passages, atwww.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/features/g/greatest%2Dtale/greatest%2Dtale% 2Dhome.html.
Ted Nelson coined the term “hypertext” in 1965. You can read about him atwww.feedmag.com/html/document/98.02nelson/98.02nelson–master.html. Another hypertext pioneer was Vannevar Bush, whose 1945 essay “As We May Think,” available atwww.theatlantic.com/atlantic/atlweb/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm, still casts a shadow over many attempts at creating literary hypertexts.
“Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace,” a book by Janet H. Murray, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, established her as one of the most insightful, forward-looking voices in the field. Her home page is at web.mit.edu/jhmurray/www/HOH.html.
Finally, when you want to dig even deeper, Word Circuits has an exhaustive list at wordcircuits.com/literature/.
