Sunday, November 27, 2011

Hypertext Fiction

Good Morning Everyone!

In preparation for starting our blogs, we are going to be exploring hypertext fiction today.  I will be presenting you with some background as well as giving you some time to navigate these modern works of literature yourselves.

When looking at these works please consider the following questions:
1. What choices did the author have to make in order to create this piece?
2. What choices are available to the reader?  What limitations are there?
3. What modes (textual, aural, visual, etc.) does the author employ?
4.  How might you adapt all of this when you begin to set up your blog?
Please, post a comment in which you answer these questions for one of the works that you look at during the presentation.

You will need the following links during the course of the presentation:

Digital Novels before the Internet:

Hyptertext Fiction after the WWW:
http://www.sunshine69.com/July_2_Twins.html
http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/joyce__twelve_blue.htmtwelve_blue.htm

Hypertext Fiction Today
 http://www.uoguelph.ca/shakespeare/folio/folio.html
 Interactive Fiction
 http://www.malinche.net/demos/adventure.html
http://www.malinche.net/demos/zork.html


12 comments:

  1. The Shakespeare link

    1. The author had the choose where to insert video, image and audio clips, as well as choose which words to link to the Lexicon.
    2. The reader can choose where to begin reading in the play, since the navigation is simple. They are limited to only seeing video clips provided for them and there is no branch off of the original text.
    3. The author includes textual modes, in the reader being able to choose any point in the play to begin reading, as well as visual and audio modes with the audio, video and images that are linked to the text. This is also a lexicon, linked to define some of the unfamiliar vocabulary.
    4. If I were to use the script of The 39 Steps, I could follow this interpretation, using video and audio clips, as well as linking to further information, definitions, etc.

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  2. The most interesting piece of hypertext fiction was the one on Romeo and Juliet. Not only did it make it a lot easier to read, but it also provided links to videos, audio posts, and definitions of words that relate to the play. While creating something like this, the author has to take into account all of the preparations that are made. Finding the links and doing research is important also. The choices that are available for the reader are clicking on the links that will take them to different pages. Unlike other websites, this one is interesting visually as well. It doesn't have blocky text that makes it hard to read. It has lots of pictures, and pictures and videos always help when it comes to trying to understand a story. When setting up my own blog I have to think about the reader. I have to give them something interesting so that they'd keep clicking links and try to find more information. You have to provide choices and limitations so that the reader would follow your guidelines as well. Overall, creating hypertext fiction takes a lot of time and organization.

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  3. Erin Cotton

    1. What choices did the author have to make in order to create this piece?
    They had to think about ALL the possible outcomes of the story. They had to think about how the characters, plot and the setting would effect the storyline overall. Another thing that they had to think about was what conflicts to create. There would be different conflicts in order to get different results.
    2. What choices are available to the reader? What limitations are there?
    The choices for the reader would be whichever way they wanted to take the story. They have the ability to choose which direction they wanted to take the story, which part of the story they wanted 1st, 2nd, 3rd ect. They limitations of the reader would probably be how the story is already created in a way. The characters, the different situations that are already described and the setting.
    3. What modes (textual, aural, visual, etc.) does the author employ?
    Visual and Textual
    4. How might you adapt all of this when you begin to set up your blog?
    Change the setting and some of the characters to fit with the character that I chose.

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  4. My favorite piece of hypertext fiction we looked at today was the adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In order to create this piece the author had to make choices on how to approach an in-depth interactive analysis of the play, that is both fun to use and incredibly useful to students. The website allows to the reader to read the entire text of the play and click on certain words that lead to references: be they text definitions, videos, or audio pieces. By employing these different modes the author makes it more enjoyable to user of the website, yet still keeping the informative nature that is presented. The only real limitation is that a lot of words aren't hyperlinked and thus a lot of it is just reading the actual text of Romeo and Juliet. In setting up my own blog, I think it's important to take the ideas of cross-referencing and employing text, aural, and visual modes to make it entertaining, enjoyable, and informative. The whole notion of hypertext is used very well here, and giving the reader choices is very important and makes them feel much more involved in the piece.

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  5. Cassidy Rose Hammond

    I am going to use the Interactive Story link.

    1. The author first had to decide on a story, of course. This includes adding options for every single action within the game, as well as as many possible endings as one might find--for example, if a character doesn't take the lamp, then what? Can you win the game? Those are questions automatically posed to the game creator as they work on something like this. They also then had to decide on a platform (instead of making this a hyperlink story like the other ones we observed, they put it into a console command type of game).
    2. You are able to input a variety of commands, stretching from simple verbs such as "Walk east" to "look" and "inventory," thus furthering your own understanding and progress of the game. In terms of limitations, there are words the game does not recognize and subsequently does not understand, and misspellings of words while typing and/or unclear commands limit your ability to do certain things.
    3. It uses textual, but it is vital to the story to remember where things are and create a visual map.
    4. I would definitely use a different plot or story, and possibly add more commands. Technicality is a huge part of the game, and so I am undecided about more commands as it could unnecessarily complicate the game or confuse its audience. I would definitely adapt it to fit a story focused on my character instead, rather than the adventure story it seems to use.

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  6. Interactive Fiction (Malineche.net)
    Angela Rollins

    1. The author had to decide which commands would create an effect and had to choose the various setting and possibilities.
    2. The reader has limited choices. They can decide directions to go and what to do with the environment. However, since it is all pre-programed it is extremely difficult to figure out which commands lead to results. Therefore the reader is extremely limited by the vast amount of possibilities to write compared to what is actually programmed into the story.
    3. Textual.
    4. I will limit the reader's options so that there is less confusion and frustration. I will make options clear with clear end results.

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  7. My personal favorite of the hypertext fiction was the interactive text adventure game. As I was playing it, I realized that there are a lot of things that the writer has to take into account. Things such as all of the choices that the player can have and what happens afterwards. There was also a great deal of time put into things such as the map (although the player cannot see it) and it depends solely on text and not on audio or visuals. Although there are an endless amount of choices you can choose, it's sort of a disadvantage, since you don't always know what to do at times and it's easy to get stuck in a rut. However, this is something I'd definitely need to take into account when writing hypertext. I'd have to think about what the choices would lead to and how to make it so that it makes sense to the reader. While it has to make sense, it's also important that it's entertaining as well, which is also something to take into consideration.

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  8. In looking at hypertext fiction today, my favorite piece was Twelve Blue. What made this piece different was the author's choice to include an introduction/description at the beginning of the piece, making the following narrative more accessible. The author also, in writing this narrative, had to make the choice of creating separate narratives and characters, and tying their stories together. This narrative was also less interrupted than others--there was only one line of text per story to click, and one image on the side of the screen to get a random thread of the story. There was a lack of audio, video, and other images, and the graphics were pixelly, but not distracting. All in all, the simplicity of the site's formatting and the accessibility of the story itself made me want to try and decipher the storylines, whereas the other hypertext stories confused and alienated me. In my own blog, I will probably use the idea of providing an introduction and keeping options for progressing to a minimum, so as to avoid major confusion.

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  9. What choices did the author have to make in order to create this piece?
    1. The author has to think ahead about all of the possible outcomes of the story. As well as that, they had to think about how each character would react to each different situation.
    What choices are available to the reader? What limitations are there?
    2. Many different choices can be available to readers depending on the path that they choose. There are limitations in the actions the character can take, as well as where the character can go.
    What modes (textual, aural, visual, etc.) does the author employ?
    3. In the last one, the interactive fiction, there is mostly a textual mode. The images are present in the reader’s head instead of the actual story.
    How might you adapt all of this when you begin to set up your blog?
    4. I would use more images in mine, though I will probably tend to fall more in the textual mode.

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  10. 1.The author of the Shakespeare hypertext had to tell about the meanings behind the piece and really get into to detail about the text.

    2.Readers could watch actual movie clips of scenes to get deeper into the text. could analyze chapters to really understand the meanings. The only limitations were the few words that had links.

    3.the author employs textual and visual modes.

    4. By supplying links and references to help understand text.

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  11. Mariah Gonzalez


    1. What choices did the author have to make in order to create this piece?

    The author had to choose when to include videos of the movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, what clips of the movie to show according to the original dialogue, how to organize access to the different parts of the play script (The author eventually decided on using arrow buttons for each Act, Scene and Page number), if to include the different digital features that are off to the right (Resources, Lexicon, Video, Audio and Image) and how to sequence each feature to the underlined term or phrase in the dialogue of the play

    2. What choices are available to the reader? What limitations are there?

    One of the choices that is available to the reader is what Act, Scene and Page
    number they wish to read/explore. This choice is beneficial to the reader in case an individual has already read the play and only wishes to explore certain parts/scenes of the text. Readers are also able to watch videos of the movie adaptation of the play in order to interpret the text if they wish to, and are given the definition of certain words in the text in order to help them decipher Shakespeare’s difficult language. The limitation that comes along with this hypertext is you cannot use every digital feature for each underlined section in the text, only one of the features is accessible according to what part of the dialogue you click on.

    3. What modes (textual, aural, visual, etc.) does the author employ?

    In this specific hypertext, the author uses the modes of textual, as well as visual. Through the use of the feature Lexicon, readers are able to get the definition to a word they may be confused on, helping them understand the play more. Through the features of Video and Image, readers are able to connect the character’s dialogue and the play’s plot to something visual rather than only having to rely on the original text. This can help readers interpret the overall plot of the play, especially if the reader is a visual thinker.

    4. How might you adapt all of this when you begin to set up your blog?

    When setting up my blog, I could apply the aspects of the Romeo and Juliet hypertext by including images and video clips of the movie adaptation of, The Notebook, that were either identical of similar to the events that occur in the novel.

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  12. 1. What choices did the author have to make in order to create this piece?

    The author had to choose what came after the options chosen by the reader. They had to craft the site to ensure that it flows and makes sense with every alternative option. Also they had to create buttons, such as go, yes, no, back, search, and links to direct the reader and inform them how to use the website.

    2. What choices are available to the reader? What limitations are there?

    The reader has the option to move forward by pressing yes or go back or even clicking on a word which directs them to a different page and alternative part of the story.

    3. What modes (textual, aural, visual, etc.) does the author employ?

    The author employs textual modes.

    4. How might you adapt all of this when you begin to set up your blog?

    I would use less confusing techniques and limit the options if I were to adapt all of this when I began to set up my blog.But I would use words to link to images and audio clips if and when necsessary.

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