What happened to hypertext fiction?

Cafe Society
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What happened to hypertext fiction?

Some years ago there was a fad amongst some * literati * about using hypertext to write fiction. The idea was that fiction could finally escape the linear restrictions of the printed page.

Well, so far as I can tell, the fad is over. Googling the terms “hypertext fiction” and hypertext novel" on both groups and the web turns up very few results for the last several years. And yet there was some talk that hypertext was going to revolutionize the novel.

Is anybody still writing hypertext fiction? Is hypertext basically dead? Can anybody recommend some ** good ** hypertext fiction (I’ve already found plenty of lousy examples)? Has HF had any significant impact on literature at all, or was it just another fad that disappeared with trace?

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I quite liked Geoff Ryman’s 253 … I liked it enough to buy the printed version. (So I may have completely missed the point …

These days, when I think of fiction on the net, the first thing that pops into my head is megabyte after megabyte of badly punctuated and usually pornographic fanfics … anything good is hidden under layer after layer of Dougal/Zebedee sado-masochistic porn or similar.

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Narrative fiction has had 10,000 years - first oral, then printed - to discover the best ways to tell a story.

Virtually everyone agrees that a certain type of story - one that is mostly linear, creates a “character arc,” and leads to a denouement that is unexpected and yet completely fitting to the characters - is the most desired mode for story-telling.

Hundreds, thousands, of experimental variations on that basic structure have been tried. Most flatly do not work. Some work spectacularly, but still do not carry with them a new basic structure for others to copy.

Hypertext may discover a workable structure over a long period of time. But it was completely unrealistic to expect that anyone could overturn 10,000 years of survival of the fittest competition for readers overnight.

Hypertext was a fad, and an altogether stupid one. That’s not at all the same thing as denying that someday a few dedicated experimenters might continue working to improve the form and discover a variant that works. But hypertext never had the slightest chance of fulfilling one-thousandth of the claims made for it.

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Hypertext fiction exists, although in a format you won’t immediately recognize - interactive gaming. That may not be the specific definition you’re looking for (if you’re thinking of a “book”), but interactive games are the hypertext equivalents of movies and TV shows, which are (simplistically) nothing more than visual forms of books.

Non-linear quest games, non-linear FPS shooters, RPGs (especially structured ones, like Knights of the Old Republic, as opposed to open-ended Everquests), etc, are all hypertext fiction.

IMHO, of course.

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There’s another form in which it exists, though it’s technically a blend of fiction and non-fiction. This Board, blogs, etc., are all hypertext writings.

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Literary hypertext fiction can still be found, but (much like virtual reality) it’s turned out to be much less ubiquitous than people ten or fifteen years ago thought it’d be. I still think it’d be great for lit crit and annotations, though.

See also Project Xanadu.

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Pardon my ignorance, but could somebody enlighten me as to what exactly “Hypertext Fiction” is?

From the name, the only thing that comes to mind is some online equilevent of “Choose your own adventure books”.

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Yeah, that’s one approach to it. Another approach is a sort of “collage”, where you have a bunch of snippets linked in some way. Or think of Spoon River Anthology, where there are a bunch of individual segments that occasionally reference each other–those references can be made into hyperlinks. Another approach is the Rashomon method, where you have bits of the story written from different viewpoints and you can jump between them.

Try poking around on the first link I posted earlier–there may be some free samples you can look at.

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I must admit that hypertext lit (or hyperfic) does tend to be the hifalutin’ sort of stuff that impresses but bores me. Many of the works I’ve seen reek too much of the message, “We’re trying to do something really really different, dammit! Admire us!” I have enjoyed stuff by noted hyperfic author Rob Wittig, he of the infamous Fall of the Site of Marsha (depicting a woman’s fluffy “angel” homepage that every few months appears to be hacked by demons, driving her into hysterical fear) and Friday’s Big Meeting, an immensely fun tale about a romance within a web design company, told via faux internal chatroom transcripts.

As far as current hypertext works out there … Hunter Hawk linked to what’s probably the most successful hypertext publisher, Eastgate, which offers a “Reading Room” that’s basically an online magazine, spotlighting hypertext stories by various authors. That might be a good way to get your feet wet in the genre. Also, their newsletter, HypertextNOW, has some essays on the world o’ hypertext that could be edifying.

A larger collection of online fiction/nonfiction can be found at ELiterature.org, with categories devoted to hyperfic, interactive gaming, short stories, enovels, and more.

For people who enjoy less artsy/experimental stuff alongside the hifalutin’ (yours truly raises her hand), there’s a middle ground between craptastic fanfic and high literature. That’d be the world of online series, many of which publish text-based episodes with semi hyperfic-like elements such as scenes containing deeper links to character profiles, diaries, setting descriptions/maps, and so on. There are many lousy, poorly written days of our lives-type websoaps, but good web series – even good websoaps – can be found as well. If you’re interested in checking out the genre, you can go to Open Directory’s Internet Series Stories/Internet Soaps category and snoop around, or click this directory devoted to the form.

Erm, full disclosure: the second link is a directory site I created. Also, I’ve produced an online series since '97 (God help me). Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hype it.