Clicking Through the Hypertext

     Through all of the electronic literatures, hypertext was the most confusing and time consuming.  Within each hypertext there are multiple links to click, which will take you in different directions through a story.  “George P. Landow’s definition of hypertext is regarded as canonical: ‘[T]ext composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path” (Carazo 116).  We worked mainly with one piece of hypertext, as well as these shorter versions.  But by spending the majority of our time on “Patchwork Girl” by Shelley Jackson it was easier to see how complex hypertext can truly be.  At the very beginning of the story you are already given options of where to go from.  “Jackson’s hypertext seems to originate in different authors: Mary Shelley, Shelley Jackson, and the monster ‘herself’” (Carazo 120).  There is not one spot to click on to bring you to one lexia but there are multiple options: graveyard, journal, quilt, story, broken accents, and sources.  Each lexia leads to a different part or aspect of the story of Patchwork Girl.  The reader is taken on a journey but decide the course.  He or she can choose to start with graveyard or story and are taken though different paths of the hypertext.  I chose to go to the lexia of “graveyard” first.

     “Graveyard” brought me the image of patchwork girl as “hercut 4.”  The body parts are in disarray and there are only two available options.  By clicking on any of the pieces of Patchwork Girl’s body, the reader is directed to a text that reads, “I am buried here. You can resurrect me, but only piecemeal. If you want to see the whole, you will have to sew me together yourself.”  These two sentences represent different parts of this story because as the reader later finds out, “sew me together” can refer to the idea that Patchwork Girl is like a quilt.  She is created by different body parts constructed together.  Continuing beyond this text, the reader can click on any of the words to be brought to another set of text.  In the blue title it states this lexia is labeled “headstone.”  With each body part mentioned (head, trunk, arms, legs, and organs) there are new directions to head in.  New details arise through clicking on these body parts but to learn about the arms and legs, the reader must choose between the left or right one to learn about.  Some give two options: look at an image or read text.  It’s difficult to understand all the pieces of the story given within a vast array of lexias.  What I found to be unique in this section was how clicking on the word ‘organs’ gives the list of organs placed within Patchwork Girl from other people like a heart, liver, lungs, stomach, guts and veins.  My initial reaction was that it seemed odd to have different organs and body parts coming from different individuals but as I read each description of the people’s stories it made more sense. 

Patchwork girl is a blend of different pieces that don’t mesh well but can still create a whole.  “Trunk” is an example of the description of the body part for the previous owner, in this instance the owner was a dance named Angela.  This specific lexia is from Patchwork Girl’s point of view.  One of the elements of this hypertext is how the story is told through more than one set of eyes.

     Most stories have one perspective, even when it’s within third person, but this hypertext is unique in its ability to tell the story of Patchwork Girl through different witnesses; hence the list of authors on the title page.  Many sections are through the voice of Patchwork Girl or Shelley Jackson.  The best way to find each section is through the lexia called

Storyspace Map, which is also presented once the Patchwork Girl CD-Rom is started.  By keeping this open in the background it helps with the confusion and gives the ability to jump to different parts of the story whenever the reader wants to.  By clicking on the white within story, the reader is shown a list of different areas that are within this section.  The reader can start wherever he or she may like.  Each lexia has its own role within the hypertext; it does get very confusing with all the available options without a set starting and ending point.  I chose to examine the falling apart section, which is written through Patchwork Girl’s perspective.  Within this area each available lexia describes an incident that occurred to Patchwork girl like her foot falling off.  Other instances, the voice shifts to another. 

     Within the section labeled journal, it is spoken by the creator of Patchwork Girl, otherwise known as Shelley Jackson.  Jackson is the creator of this monster and this section is her account of the interaction between her and Patchwork girl after creating her.  It’s interesting to envision this through the eyes of a female creator because everyone already knows the story of Frankenstein and how it was a male who created the creature.  I’ve never read Frankenstein but I think there are obvious differences especially through the eyes of a woman.

     A different section I found to be interesting is the lexia’s of ‘crazy quilt.’  I mentioned before how Patchwork Girl is like a quilt because she is constructed through an array of pieces.  There is also a specific section dedicated to the idea of a quilt.  This is the one section that is very colorful; each lexia of text is written in a different color and they are all separate pieces of information that form a story line.  Everything is placed within a sequence in this section and most of the story is the creation of Patchwork Girl.  By looking at the list of lexias for this section, the reader can visually interpret the ideas of a crazy quilt due to the use of different colors scattered through the pieces.  This can be a reflection of Patchwork Girl herself since she is just different body parts put together; there are ways to distinguish how each part is different on her like a quilt.

     Everything about Patchwork Girl is very elaborate and difficult to form a proper grasp. There is no clear root to take, leaving the reader the advantage of going in any direction he or she finds first.  Everyone may start at the same image of the Patchwork Girl body all together and the storyspace map but that doesn’t mean everyone will experience things exactly the same.  From hours spent trying to understand and see everything within this hypertext, I still feel that I’ve missed a lot.  It was a frustrating process because sometimes I would feel like I wasn’t going the right way to understand the story.  I knew that nothing was in a straight order like a novel you’d pick off the shelf at a library but that didn’t matter; I would’ve felt more comfortable if there was a clear cut way to walk through this hypertext.  I did like how I was able to decide my own course on occasion but in that way you might also miss important lexias.  I’m sure if I kept working with this hypertext, I could form a solid understanding of Patchwork Girl.  If anyone was interesting in reading Patchwork Girl and asked my opinion, I’m sure they wouldn’t be purchasing that CD-Rom.  Not on the basis of the story’s plot but because of the frustration and confusion since most people desire a clear ending and feel a sense of purpose to everything told.  This doesn’t mean my experience with hypertext will end here; someday I’m sure a hypertext will cross my path and be the one I read through over and over again.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shelley. Patchwork Girl. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems, 1995. CD-Rom.

Sanchez-Palencia Carazo, Carolina, and Manuel Almagro Jimenez. "Gathering the Limbs of the Text in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl." Atlantis 28.1 (June 2006): 115-129. Web. 29 Nov 2010. http://vista.csus.ct.edu/webct/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct.

IF Can Be Quite the Process

     Fiction has been known to have been written on paper or passed through the storytellers. Most of the time there is a record of the story that is shared between generations and generations. It’s never changing and each page brings the reader deeper in the plot. But can we, as readers, interact with the story? Maybe change things the protagonist sees or does? Or alter the order in which things happen? The answer is…yes.  Interactive fiction allows the player, the individual at the computer, to not only read what is happening but be the protagonist of the story. It’s an interesting concept to think that you can control the character instead of only following him from page to page. According to Dennis G. Jerz, “Interactive fiction (IF) is computer-mediated narrative, resembling a fine-grained ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ story, in which the reader helps to determine the outcome of the story.” When starting the interactive fiction you are most likely presented with a title and prologue to gain a basic understanding of what the author wants you to achieve. Unfortunately, not everything about IF is in black-and-white. You have to work with what you are told from the beginning and figure out what to do next; examine, talk to someone, pick up something, go somewhere, etc. You determine what would be the best course of action for the character.

     Acting as the player, or the individual that’s at the computer putting the inputs in to receive the outputs, you control where to go next. It’s very difficult to determine what to do. When we got to be the player of someone else’s IF it was a strange idea, I thought, to tell the story what to do. You are commanding the scene. Within the IF there are different elements from the different types of characters to how to progress through the story and interact. When you first look at an IF you don’t know if you can say exactly what you want to ask or tell a non-player character. This is a slight challenge because you need to use deductive reasoning and thinking otherwise the computer might not understand what you want to say or do, or maybe it’s not the correct action. It can be a long process to go through an interactive fiction or very simple.

     In class, and on our own, we have read different examples of interactive fiction; some seemed to be more complex or in depth than others. I found “Galatea” to be the most interesting with not only the storyline but the way to move through the story. To interact with the story, you are supposed to speak to and ask questions to a statue. Depending on questions or discussions made determines which direction the story goes. Every story as a specific ending but “Galatea” doesn’t have a similar ending with each trial. Also the statue doesn’t talk to the player in the same manner every time. When I was trying to speak with Galatea, she acted different towards me each time I attempted to ask a question. I tried to ask her about her sculptor; she told me about his art life, personal life, and travel life. Every time I had to type an action for my player character, I had to be sure that it was specific enough or on the right track otherwise Galatea wouldn’t respond or the responses were coldhearted.

     When I was asking her where she came from and her many travels sometimes I wasn’t picking the right things to ask. I tried to ask her about specific places; some places she told me about and other times it seemed like she shut me down. This whole story was quite the adventure to uncover what you really want to know about this statue or what she might be able to tell you. Sometimes I would get frustrated because I couldn’t decide what to next. It got confusing when trying to distinguish which direction I should go next in my questions. To top things off, Galatea would get more frustrated with me. When I was examining this interactive fiction, I was in the classroom and could hear other students saying how they received a hug from her, walked with her, or sat with her. I felt like I couldn’t find the best way to get the statue to warm up to my character. Maybe the process would’ve worked better if I thought of typing in directives in order to get hints or other specific commands. This traversal is very unique because each player can achieve different responses. “Galatea” must have taken the author a long amount of time and a lot of creative ideas. Interactive fictions are not something a person can create overnight.

     I was given the opportunity to create my own interactive fiction and include specific elements. I wanted to create something that gave the player the opportunity to make his or her own decisions yet there find out there is only one solution to move forward. The initial situation I create was the player realizing that it is their little brother’s birthday but they forgot to buy a present. Now they must go to the mall with $100 to purchase a gift. The issue the player deals faces is that he or she cannot move forward unless they purchase items from different stores and food court; leaving them with less money to spend on the brother. I created the interactive fiction in a way that it’s more like a story with only one way out. The best part about this project was being able to come up with my own idea. I thought the idea of having to move through a mall quickly to find an item made the story more appealing to go through. If I had more time or knew more ways to work with the interactive fiction program, I might have tried to create different endings so the player can make their own choices. Difficulty set in with the easiest process of only starting the fiction.

     Starting with the basics of creating an interactive fiction didn’t seem like it would be tough but determining what was necessary to include or which direction to go to next became the hard parts. The program would act very sensitive towards actions I’d write. Or if I forgot to include something it would give me an error message for that as well. Time was definitely a great key to try and understand what I needed to do. Not only was it hard to determine what I wanted to write but to give the player options. Mostly I create the interactive fiction so the player was examining items, talking to others and going into different locations. I wish I figured out how to make things more interesting. For example, while the player is in the bookstore instead of only purchasing the series of Edgar Allen Poe books the person can have the option of searching through books and buying one book or more. I think if I had taken more time to explore the world of the interactive fiction I could’ve found a way to give more opportunities.

     This whole concept of writing a fiction that an individual can interact with it seemed strange at first. But as I played around with some and had a chance to produce my own showed that there is more than meets the eye. At a glance it seems that it wouldn’t be a difficult process but there are many elements and ways to create the interactive fiction. Stories like these seem more entertaining because there are possibilities for the stories to end differently, like “Galatea.” Of course, the traditional pen and paper fictions are just as enjoyable. But trying to come up with a concept and actions for an interactive fiction seems harder to me than writing one down. There are more elements and decisions that can be examined with an interactive fiction while pen and paper is straightforward with only one direction. I feel like I have a lot of respect for those authors who chose to create an interactive fiction. I didn’t finish writing my own that I can only imagine all of the effort these people put into creating their pieces of work. Unlimited possibilities are in store for interactive fictions and their authors. It appears to me that IF can be a story and a game at the same time. Mary Ann Buckles said, “Perhaps it will take someone who is both a programmer and an author to explore the artistic promise of IF and creates works of literature that rank with the classics of traditional literature.” I agree with Buckles that there are possibilities to bring interactive fiction further towards the surface. I never knew about IF until this English class but I feel like it’s something everyone can enjoy. Literature seems to be found in unexpected places in unexpected ways; it gives readers and players the opportunity to expand into the fictional world from all different directions.

Works Cited

“Galatea” http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/short__galatea.html

"Interactive Fiction as Literature." Fiction Books : Fiction eBooks : Interactive Fiction : Text Adventure Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <http://www.malinche.net/interactivefictionasliterature

"Interactive Fiction: What Is It?." Dennis G. Jerz . N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/intro

E-Poetry Exposed

     Traditional poems were known to be written by hand presented in black and white. Now there has been an expanse of how and where to write poetry. Electronic poetry brings a new meaning to reading between the lines. I didn’t realize that certain poems were created just for the electronic world. The authors of each poem have taken unique paths in demonstrating what is capable of electronic poetry. Some say that it’s difficult to define what e-poetry is due to the fact that people continue to add their own ideas and interpretations each day. Talan Memmott wrote a paper discussing digital poetry and the problems of reading it. The thesis he came up with was that it is difficult to define and classify electronic poetry. He said, “Its only feasible definition is a minimal one: that the object in question be ‘digital,’ mediated through digital technology, and that it be called ‘poetry’ by its author or by a critical reader” (Memmott, 293). It’s hard to classify something as it changes. The best thing e-poetry provides for a person leaves the potential for thinking. Everything is no longer black and white but presented in a vast array of colors, movements, sounds, etc. Reading different e-poems by different authors made me think a lot about what I saw electronic poetry to be.

     Instead of sticking with tradition and on a straight path, others have strayed towards the woods to adventure and explore other possibilities. One of the first poems we explored was called “The Best Cigarette” by Billy Collins. Reading the poem on a piece of paper felt like all the analysis was left up to me as the reader. A lot of times the poetry on a white paper feels so boring yet complex. You want to understand what the stanzas are entailing and why certain phrases are used but it gets harder to grasp. Looking at the poem online made the interpretation not only enjoyable but easier to comprehend. Instead of me just reading the words to myself, the e-poem was read by the author. Billy Collins read the entire poem and as he reads it the images smoothly transition as the words change. The poem begins by typing out the first line, “There are many that I miss” then to follow are street lines. These street lines illustrate the following line, which reads “having sent my last one out a car window.” But as Collins’ continues to read his poem the imagine transitions into a trail of smoke. By seeing the smoke trail it helps to comprehend and envision what the poet meant by his words. Not only do I get to picture the idea of a car driving down the road but the smoke let’s me think about a cigarette being thrown out the window and still has a trail of smoke from not being completely finished. “Sparkling along the road one night, years ago” is the third line spoken while the trail of smoke is still visible on the screen. It makes it so much easier to enjoy the poem with the illustrations.

     “The Best Cigarette” wasn’t the most difficult poem to read without the images but it added something to the poem that almost lets the reader inside the speaker’s mind. But illustrations and being read the text are not the only elements that make up the poem. At first glance it wasn’t obvious to me what to observe as an element but the poem doesn’t contain colors; the entire presentation is in black and white. The individual who created the electronic version of the poem could have exhibited different colors to illustrate the glow of the cigarette burning or the yellow of “the sun bright in the windows.” Instead he kept everything with the white, grey, and black tones. I think this element adds more to the poem and that if there were in colors; that would have just taken away from the vision of the cigarette. There’s also the accent of the smoke within every image. Cigarettes have constant flows of smoke, especially when the smoker consumes the nicotine. Constantly providing smoke illustrations keeps a consistency of the cigarette and how it can affect so much around the speaker and lifestyles. But these aren’t the only ways for someone to demonstrate their use of electronic poetry.

     On my own I examined an electronic poem that wasn’t discussed in class. I searched on http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/index.htm and found a poem called “Intersecting” by Joanna Sakellion. There are various ways to navigate through the poem. It’s not presented like “The Best Cigarette” where it’s in a specific order. The reader starts with a picture of a key hole and when you move your mouse over it a key appears over the hole. By clicking the key, the reader enters the poem and the three different views possible. There are three silhouette images that the reader can choose to click on and begin the poem. Depending on which image is clicked on will determine where the poem begins. As you continue to click on the pictures, the lines of text will change but interlocks between the people the poem is about. The title reflects the meaning of the poem. The three individuals that the poet writes about have intersecting ideas. No matter which image you choose to start with, the lines that will appear are the same just in different patterns or order. Each person has their own story but with similar thoughts going through their minds.

     The shattering champagne glass in between the three faces signifies the connection between the individuals. Sakellion used this idea as the starting point and from each click of the reader’s mouse begins the cycle of each story. The three individual’s stories share the bond between them as well because it seems like there was a conflict intruding that caused pain among them. The wording is never clear and continues moving giving the impressing that things are unresolved between the three people and they are all confused. I think that having the words constantly moving demonstrates how these characters are broken and don’t know where to go with what occurred. The broken champagne glass can also be a representation of where the story of destruction all began but also how the people are feeling; broken apart. This poem is similar to “The Best Cigarette,” not in the way it was constructed but by the incorporation of imagery with the text. But even with this similarity, the authors expressed electronic poetry in different manners. I think by comparing these two poems shows how interpretations between poets are not consistent. But even with this similarity, the authors expressed electronic poetry in different manners. I think by comparing these two poems shows how interpretations between poets are not consistent. When poets write their work on a sheet of paper it is a consistency, maybe not in stanza forms but there are certain features that will link them.  

     I got to experience creating an electronic poem of my own. I wanted to take advantage of really understanding all the work it takes to creating one. And believe me, it’s a lot of work and effort. I wanted to write my own poem, I enjoy trying to find an idea and working through it. Writing the poem was a special process all on its own but definitely worth it. Right from the start I had the idea of dealing with snow. I was hoping to create some kind of animation that looked like snow in the final product but soon enough I decided to change my mind. After a couple drafts of edits I finished with writing about the blanket of snow that covers the ground without ever calling it snow; I wanted to reader to be able to interpret what the “White Blanket” was describing.

     Once placing all the stanzas onto the white slides I wanted there to be some accented colors to certain words like in the phrase “Like the reds and greens that sparkle in the night.” I thought by accenting the words ‘red,’ ‘green’ and ‘night’ it would pull the reader more to the idea of the Christmas colors by making it seem like they glow. Other slides had a few words that I wanted to create attention to like ‘color.’ I didn’t want the reader to just think of any colors so I made the tones red, brown, orange, and yellow to represent the colors of fall being covered by the fall of snow. I was somewhat inspired by the other electronic poems’ uses of animation with the words. In one of our first examples called “Faith” by Robert Kendall, the author created separate animations for different words he was accenting or wanting the reader to pay attention too. I thought this would work well especially when I wanted words like ‘hotter’ to be noticeable. The line read, “Sun rises hotter with each new morn.” So to actually get the idea of being hotter, I colored the word with red, yellow, and orange then I animated the word separately by having it grow larger than the others.

     All together, I put a lot of different animations for when each stanza arrives on the page and different colors to at least a word per page. It grew more and more difficult with each idea that passed through my mind. I started out with one text box with all four lines per PowerPoint slide just to separate them all to give each line a separate time and animation. It’s obvious that electronic poets take a lot of time and energy to construct these visual poems for readers. It is hard to come up with a concept and write it on a page but then adding more symbolic ideas would add to frustration I think. I believe what Memmott was saying that it’s hard to come up with a solid definition of what electronic poetry is. Everyone is open to their own interpretation with the possibility of adding their own twist. E-poetry is constantly changing and quite possibly will become the more norm way of creating a poem.

WORKS CITED:

Collins, Billy. “The Best Cigarette.” http://www.bcactionpoet.org/the%20best%20cigarette.html

Kendall, Robert. “Faith.” http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/kendall__faith.html

Memmot, Talon.  New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories.  Cambridge, Mass, 293.

Sakellion, Joanna. “Intersecting Lives.” http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/fall2002/intersectinglives/index.htm