Hypertext, you’re hyperconfusing


(Image: Cardiff University)

It’s quite difficult to visualize what hypertext fiction is like, so here’s a video of Michael Joyce’s hypertextual novel afternoon in action:

Hypertext fiction is like the evil twin brother of good ol’ fiction. In a nutshell, the former threatens to overthrow traditional storytelling methods by eliminating a story’s conventional skeleton – the beginning, middle and end.

My initial reaction?

How about that three-act structure I just learned in Spring?!?!!?

But I read on, and began to find Landow’s argument extremely intriguing.

In a world of hypertext fiction, stories would never end; there would never be closure. Instead of “closure”, hyperfiction focuses on “continuation”. Theoretically, stories would be infinite. Readers wouldn’t remain readers; they’d become reader-authors with the ability to shape a story to their fancy. The stories end when you, as reader-author, want it to end.

Although we are on the topic of fiction, I feel like this postmodern method of storytelling reflects reality much more accurately. In reality, our “stories” never truly “end”.

For example, a breakup isn’t necessarily the “end” of a relationship between two individuals. Endings usually signify a point in which the story has “stabilized”. But I like to view stories as a volatile line graph, that rises and dips like a wave. “Stabilization” may signify a dip and subsequently a stagnant period of inaction, but it is bound to rise again. So, in the aforementioned example, the breakup could merely be a stagnant point in that particular relationship. The future of this relationship has various possibilities, but there is no “end” per se. Instead, a “to be continued…” is in order.

Mardy also made an interesting point about the relationship between hypertext and linearity – check out her post here 🙂

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