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My name is Katherine Abrahams. Welcome to my English 493 - Seminar in Communications and Technology final project! This semester I have been exploring the boundaries of hyperfiction, especially in regards to the experience of a writer in composing a work in this genre.
What is hyperfiction? A grossly oversimplified definition of hyperfiction is...a fictional piece of writing which uses links to join sections of text (Landow 225). Often the information or concepts connected by hyperlinks are closely related to the word chosen to link from. In terms of fiction, the use of hyperlinks changes the experience of reading; the links promote what George P. Landow calls "multilinear or multisequential--not nonlinear--reading" (225). This begs the question, what happens to plot/characters/conventions of print literature when one is able to 'jump around?' Depending on the style of hyperfiction a reader stumbles upon, links may allow readers to expand their knowledge about a particular scene or character, then return to their point of origin, or they may abruptly jump a reader to a different plot point in the story. In some ways, this transfers some amount of authorship to the reader--it is the readers who will get to decide the outcome of a story by the choices they make while reading the text, not necessarily the authors. Hyperfiction is still a new genre. Foundational studies by important figures in hypertext theory began in the early 1990s and continue to the current day (Moulthrop… p 18, hypertext). Michael Joyce's Afternoon is the first of its kind to be recognized as hyperfiction. What follows is my experimentation based on research into the origins of hyperfiction, traditional plots, and electronic texts. It is meant as a simple experiment in plot, character, and authorship. And, as is the nature of the hyperlinks, it will always be under construction. Best viewed with Mozilla Firefox. |
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Choose your path:
the linear path the network the tree a braided plot |
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Stuart Moulthrop
Moulthrop's homepage Pax, an instrument Hegirascope Reagan Library George Landow Landow's homepage Brief overview of hypertext Jason Pettus Creamed Corn |
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Name: Katherine Abrahams
E-mail: kabrah3@umbc.edu Year: UMBC '07 Campus Mail: Susquehanna 366 Phone: 443-612-0023 Walker, Jill. "Piecing together and tearing apart: finding the story in afternoon." Jill/txt. 1999. Dept of Humanistic Informatics, University of Be. 15 Apr. 2007 Hesse, Carla . "Books in Time." The Future of the Book. Ed. Geoffrey Nunberg. Berkley: University of California Press, 1996. Luce-Kapler, Rebecca, and Teresa Dobson. "In Search of a Story: Reading and Writing E-Literature." Reading Online (2005). 27 Mar. 2007 http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=luce-kapler/index.html Ryan, Marie-Laure. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: The John's Hopkins University Press, 2001. |