In his article “An Infinitude Of Possible Worlds’: Towards A Research Method For Hypertext” Spencer Jordan suggests that:
We live in a
world in which almost all media are now dependent on some kind of electronic
technology, either in terms of how it is made or/and hosted. Even traditionally printed novels today
almost certainly started life as an electronic file on a word processor. In this sense, almost all creative writing is
digital at some time in its life cycle (Jordan 4).
This suggestion
assumes that hypertext fiction or hyperfiction in essence is a purely
technological construct. When we think
of fiction, we think of print books.
Technological advances have changed how we read fiction by way of the
e-book. In literary terms, hypertext
fiction is as remote from an e-book as non-digital hypertext fiction is from a
standard book. Hypertext makes new forms
of art possible, but hypertext is not something regarded as new in the literary
sense. The use of hyperlink in fiction
is a technological evolution of longstanding literary technique.
Pioneering
Hypertext and Jorge Luis Borges:
In
a digital age, hearing the term hypertext immediately connotes that technology
is involved. Hypertext is a term coined by Theodor H. Nelson in the 1960s,
defining it as “a form of electronic text, a radically new information
technology, and a mode of publication” (Landow 2). Thinking of hypertext instead as a literary
tool that expands the fiction experience beyond a linear storyline, opens a
rich history of hypertext fiction that has evolved naturally to take advantage
of expanding technology.
Operating
with this concept of a literary technique, the use of hypertext preceded its
technological connotations as early as the 1940s with the publication of “TheGarden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges. This particular work is an early example of
maze-like narrative in which the reader experiences the story through branching
paths, much like the narrator of the story itself.
Borges
work provides scholars with an example of Chaos Theory in which order is
created out of disorder. The
multi-forking paths that create the tale are the very model of hypertext – each
chosen path taking the reader to something new.
“The Garden of Forking Paths” has inspired many hypertext fiction
authors and New Media scholars who find that Borges’ “metaphysical and
scientific ideas relate to the emerging paradigms of hyperfiction”
(Sasson-Henry 2006).
Early
to Contemporary Forms of Literary Hypertext:
These
emerging paradigms would surface in the 1980s with the publication of Choose Your Own Adventure,
a popular children’s book series published by Bantam
Books. Each book in the series was
written in second-personpoint-of-view and allowed the reader to become a part
of the narrative by making choices to determine the plot’s overall outcome.
This
technique continues to evolve in works like 1991’s Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence Series by Nick
Bantock. In this series, the reader is
taken on a surreal journey with the title’s characters, Griffin, an artist
living in London, and Sabine, another artist living on a fictional island. Both engage in a correspondence though
neither has ever met. Rather than
offering branching alternatives to a linear story, the book is fully
illustrated with postcards and actual letters that must be removed from
envelopes and read in order to navigate the story.
It
is a visual journey as much as a literary one and as the mystery of the characters’
connection reveals itself, you find yourself just as invested as they are
within the context of the narrative.
In
the spirit of Bantock, MarkZ. Danielewski’s Houseof Leaves,
takes
the reader through a twisting narrative rife with journal entries, poetry,
interviews, and transcriptions of a documentary collected together to tell the
intriguing and haunting story of a peculiar house and those who encounter
it. It is a dizzying story, and at times
disorienting, as pages are written with stair-stepping sentences, others with
only images and a few words, creating a claustrophobic element that boxes you
in with little where else to turn. It is
an unconventional and multi-layered narrative complete with footnotes written
by the character Johnny Truant who is actually reading the transcripts and
documentation gathered by a blind scholar, Zampano.
Danielewski
goes a step further than Bantock by creating supplemental experiential
hypertext for his novel.
Singer/songwriter Poe,
Danielewski’s sister, wrote a companion piece to the book, an album entitled
“Haunted” which alludes to various elements found in the book as well as
linking it with a story involving her father and a collection of audio tapes
she found after his death. The tapes and
messages from the novel are used throughout the music and lyrics. The music video for the first single “Hey Pretty”
includes her brother reading from the book over the music.
This
non-digital literary tradition is continued as recently as 2013’s S. by J.J. Abrams and
Doug Dorst. Here we are presented with a
story within a story about two university students who are corresponding over
the details of an elusive author and the mystery behind his identity. The fictional author, V.M. Straka’s novel, Ship of Theseus can be read as a
standalone novel, while the story outside of the novel takes place in the
book’s margins and with removable and interactive supplementary documents included
with the book, such as physical postcards, letters, and newspaper
clippings.
The
common thread through these non-digital hypertext fiction works is that the
expansion beyond a linear storyline is still controlled. The reader’s experience is mediated by the supplemental
hypertext information provided by the authors.
This
control of the experience, even in letting the reader choose his or her own
experience is all the more important in the digital landscape. In digital hypertext, if the hyperlinked text
is not used in a thoughtful and finite way, the reader can start drawing in
other conclusions that aren’t a part of the author’s original intentions. In addition, in a digital hyperlink, the
author has to be cognizant enough of the point being made in the larger story,
and that the points are not being undermined by the hyperlinks. By this intentional mediation by the author,
if the reader decides not to take the hyperlink journey, the author’s
intentions are still within the original text.
As
Bolter states, “hypertext is not nonlinear, but multilinear. Each reading of a hypertext must be a linear
experience, because the reader must move from episode to episode, activating
links and reading the text that is presented.
The problem that hypertext poses for the reader is the problem of
understanding the multiple lines she must travel in traversing the web of the
text” (Bolter 128).
Bridging
Hypertext From Traditional to Digital:
The elements of hypertext according to www.cyberartsweb.org are Nodes, Links,
Buttons, and Editor:
1. Nodes:
a collection of data organized around a specific topic.
2. Links:
anchors to provide users with “some explicit object to activate in order to
follow the link.
3. Buttons:
Visual cues to alert a user that a link exists.
4. Editor:
enables a user to create a node and link it into the network.
While
these elements are discussed as new opportunities presented by technology, in
reality these concepts are easily found as early as the late 1800s into
contemporary literature.
While Borges’ “The Garden of Forking
Paths” is regarded as one of the first incarnations of hypertext fiction, an
argument can be made that these concepts were first seen in 1897’s Dracula by Bram Stoker. The novel is epistolary in format, utilizing
letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, and even ship logs to advance the
story. Each of these elements of the
novel’s format represent nodes, a collection of data, supporting the overarching
story.
Links are the most easily
identifiable of these elements in almost any hyperfiction story. Most obvious example of this are the choices
presented to the reader in a Choose Your
Own Adventure book. At the end of a
plot point within the story, a reader is given several options to propel the
story forward. These choices operate as
links by providing options and directing the reader to specific new pages to
continue the story.
The element of Buttons is showcased in Griffin
and Sabine by way of literal and visual cues via postcards and envelopes
taking you from one correspondence to the next.
These letters and postcards are not supplemental to the book, but placed
at specific junctures in the text prompting the reader to open them at that
point.
In regards to the fourth and last
element of hypertext, Editor, both S. and House of Leaves incorporate an author/editor who compiles a
collection of data (nodes) and links it together within a network (the narrative)
to create an internal structure for the reader.
Eastgate and Interactive Fictions:
Simultaneous
to the literary evolution of non-digital hypertext fiction was the
technological evolution of digital hypertext and hyperlinks. Founded in 1982, Eastgate Systems became the
leader in publishing hypertext fiction in a digital space. One of the most renowned hypertext stories
published at this time was Michael Joyce’s “Afternoon, a story”.
“’Afternoon’
combines the sophistication that we have associated with printed fiction with
the immediacy of an interactive adventure game.
It is a fiction and a game at the same time” (Bolter 124).
Interactive
Fictions, or IF, achieved commercial success during the late 70s and into the
mid-80s, marketed for home computers.
They were primarily text-based only and were the precursor to
interactive videogames like Myst. The text-based format, much like current
roleplaying games and a variety of other genre videogames, focuses on a
protagonist who is assumed by the player to navigate and complete the
game. Like Choose Your Own Adventure, the story is presented in a
second-person writing style, addressing “you” the player as the character in
the story. In this way, Bolter is right
in suggesting that “hypertext makes a claim to an authenticity different from
an authenticity of print: it offers the reader a new literary experience in
which she can share control of the text with the author” (Bolter 122).
The
emergence of both technology and the opportunities that digital hypertext
fiction provided also meant that a space for that fiction needed to be
created. Eastgate created a website
devoted to the publishing of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry presented in a
hypertext landscape. The website
provides various tools to creating and editing hypertext fiction with programs
like StorySpace
and Tinderbox.
Programs such as these allow authors to construct different narrative pathways
by taking advantage of hypertext.
The
Future of Hypertext Fiction:
As
much as digital hypertext fiction is different from an e-book, they both face
the same challenge moving forward: getting readers to move from a non-digital
to a digital format. “Books feel
good. They operate well. It turns out that hundreds of years of
publishing have field-tested for us the best ways to display text, to compose
pages” (Kostick 2011).
Landow
argues that hypertext has “the capacity to emphasize intertextuality in a way
that page-bound text in books cannot” (Landow 55), but as history of this form
of literature shows, page-bound texts is able to offer as rich an intertextual
experience as digital hypertext fiction.
Hypertext
fiction can continue as a rich part of a long literary tradition or it can take
advantage of what technology offers to evolve into its own literary form and
format. The non-digital hypertext literature
I’ve presented represents a small, but influential portion of an interactive
library that exists in the literary world.
Each offers their readers a chance to view the world of a story in
nonlinear and amazing ways, helping reshape how we read, and reinvigorating and
sustaining our passion for the written word.
Works Cited
Bolter, J. David. Writing
Space: Computers, Hypertext, And The Remediation Of Print. New York,
New
York. Routledge, 2011. Print.
Christanto,
Hendrick. "Elements of Hypertext." Elements of Hypertext.
N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar.
2015.
<http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/christanto/el_of_htext.htm>.
Jordan, Spencer.
"‘An Infinitude Of Possible Worlds’: Towards A Research Method For
Hypertext
Fiction." New Writing: The International
Journal For The Practice & Theory Of Creative Writing 11.3 (2014):
324-334. Literary Reference Center. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Kostick, Anne.
"Digital Reading: Are We Experienced?" Digital Book World.
N.p., 13 Jan. 2011.
Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/digital-reading-are-we-experienced/>.
Landow, P. George.
Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New
Media in an Era of Globalization.
Baltimore,
Maryland. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print.
Sassón-Henry,
Perla. "Chaos Theory, Hypertext, And Reading Borges And Moulthrop." Clcweb:
Comparative Literature & Culture: A Wwweb Journal
8.1 (2006): 1-11. Literary Reference Center. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
