A Pokemon Story

A pokémon named Pikachu was all along. Just then his friend Zor came along and they played and played; and they played happily ever after.

To Ellis, from Olivia

The Lonely Fish

A lonely fish was swimming on his own; he was sad.

Just then his friend decided to play with him. They played happily ever after.

To Dylan, from Olivia.

(Editor’s note: Spelling has been corrected and punctuation added.)

If I had listened to Jimmy Hendrix, I could have said “wow, I want to play guitar just like Jimmy!” and taken guitar lessons; been inspired to emulate him.

I could have said “wow, I want to play drums like Buddy Rich” and taken drum lessons and become a good drummer.

I could have said “hey, listen to John Entwistle. I could play bass like that” and taken bass lessons and been a bassist.

But I listened to Rush.

I simply couldn’t decide who to be like. I would listen to a song and hear Geddy slapping away so masterfully on his bass and say “yeah, I want to be a bassist like Geddy!” Then, bam!, into the next song and I’d be completely in awe of Neil’s drums. “Yeah, I wanna do that!” Then, wah-wah-wah, Alex’s guitar would lead to new musical heights. Sigh. Yup, I wanted that too.

There was simply no hope; no possible way to decide. My musical dreams shattered by three maestros.

For the record, I still listen to them and I’ve yet to grow tired of any of their songs. And I’m very much looking forward to Clockwork Angels.

(If you’re wondering, yes there is a bit of hyperbole here; I am tone deaf and have no rhythm. I never had a chance.)

I need to apologize.

For all those times you were in your workroom quietly trying to work on something and I was there — at your elbow, over your shoulder, asking endless questions – I am sorry.

Having a 6 year old, whenever I try to work on the car or on some project around the house, she is there ‘helping’. Don’t get me wrong, I love her more than anything. And, I really do like having her help me. I enjoying teaching her the things you taught me – changing the oil in the car; rotating tires; fixing a faucet.

But honestly, sometimes I just want work. Uninterrupted. Sometimes I just need to finish the project.

So dad, thank you for your patience and wisdom and everything you taught me.

And I’m sorry.

Love,
Tim

I sensed a trap.

“I don’t remember,” I replied (which is the truth). “Why do you ask?”

“Well, did you buy me all of the presents I got?” she craftily asked. The trap was truly set.

“Of course not,” said I. “We bought you some; your grandparents bought you some. Why? What’s up?”

“Well,” she said, “I’m trying to figure out if Santa is real. If you bought me all of my presents then he isn’t. But if you didn’t buy everything that was under our tree he’s real.”

“Oh, of course we didn’t buy you everything. Don’t you believe in Santa?”

“Well, I believe in him, I’m just trying to figure out if he’s real. If you didn’t buy everything under the tree …”

Luckily mom stepped in to remind the girl which presents came from Santa that we, most assuredly, did not purchase.

The Rules: No javascript; should work in modern browsers.

The Result: CSS Zoom. Works in the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and IE9. (IE9 doesn’t support the transitions, but that’s OK.)

Caressing HTML

The HTML is pretty straight forward: a container and 4 boxes. (I opted to use HTML5 sections. The full file also has a <nav> element in there to provide internal linking.):

<div id="folio">
	<section id="p1">1</section>
	<section id="p2">2</section>
	<section id="p3">3</section>
	<section id="p4">4</section>
</div>

Stacking the sections is straight forward:

/* ==== Our container ==== */
#folio {
  position: relative;
  ...
}

section {
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  right: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  opacity: 0;
  ...
}

Non-permanent Viewing

Now all four sections are the same size as the parent div, and are all sitting on top of each other. But only one should be visible at a time, and when the view changes the visible element should zoom past and fade out while the next one appears.

To handle the visibility I opted to set opacity: 0 for all of the section elements. So, when you first load the demo page you just see an empty box.

The visibility (via opacity) of the elements is handled via the :target pseudo-class:

section:target {
  opacity: 1;
}

So anytime a section becomes the target of a link, it pops back into view. To handle the reverse state — any section not the target of a link — I turned naturally to the :not() pseudo-class. (It’s OK if that isn’t natural to you; this is the first time I’ve actually found a use for the selector.)

section:not(:target) {
  opacity: 0;
  ...
}

Moving Pictures

But we don’t want to just change opacity from 0 to 1 and back again with some funky pseudo-classes. The goal was to have the current section fly out past the view to be replaced with the next one. Time to turn to CSS3 Transitions and Transforms.

To set up the timing function, I originally had:

section {
  ...
  transition: all 1s;

This tells the browser to transition all CSS properties from one state to the next over a 1 second period. For example, we could set section {color: blue;} and section:hover {color: red;}. The color change would happen over a 1 second period when the element was hovered on.

To achieve the zoom effect, we can use transform: scale(5);; this will scale, or zoom, our element 5 times its original size. Combine that with our opacity change and we have:

section:not(:target) {
  opacity: 0;
  transform: scale(5);
}

But, with the transition on the section elements the zoom effect occurred in both directions; when an element was no longer a target, it scaled up and faded out, but the target element could be seen scaling down and fading in. While that was cool on its own, it wasn’t the affect I was going for.

The key to unlocking the one-way zoom effect was to separate the timing function. First I moved the transition the section selector to the section:not(:target) selector. Then I added a second timing function for the section:target element and set it to affect opacity only:

section:target {
  opacity: 1;
  transition: opacity 4s;
}

section:not(:target) {
  opacity: 0;
  transition: all 1s;
  transform: scale(5);
}

The result: :target elements instantly scale to normal size, but slowly fades in, while the :not(:target) elements fade out as they scale up. (I set a slower time so it wasn’t jarring to have it instantly snap in before the out-going image was done.)

In the End

Take a look at the source code of the demo to see everything involved. The code above has been cleaned up for presentation — in reality to get all of the transition and transforms to work you’ll need to include the vendor prefixes (-moz-, -webkit-, -o-). You can also see some other CSS3 selectors in use, mainly :nth-of-type(), which was used to set the background images. Yes, I could have used ID selectors, but I didn’t want to. Also in play is background-size: cover to size the background images.

Need new site written (Downriver)

Site must be able to: Search for a business name, and or category (ex: pottery) or by city to form a list of matches. once a business is selected, viewer will be able to see, a main page for the business, a photo gallery with text, a link to a pdf page, a yearly calendar, a link to the businesses other website, email, twitter and facebook links.

The business owner can edit their pages anytime they like, with a username and password, (that I can see as the admin in my admin pages). It should be written idiotproof for the novice computer user. Easily udated pages by either uploading a picture or typing text. NO FTP AT ALL ANTWHERE> in each admin page I will need a recap page that will be things like, show name, weather that day, that days sales, best selling product, etc. a yearly expenditure total and spending total.

If you decide that you can do this type of work, i wil provide you with more details.
Please don’t inquuire if you arent able to do this type of work, its a waste of your time and mine.
I will need someone who can start right away.

Location: Downriver
Compensation: I have a $600 budget

The kicker is, of course, the last line: I have a $600 budget. The poster is only off by about $10,000 or more; probably a lot more.

The narrative arc of storytelling is also usually best as three parts: Exposition yields Rising Action yields Resolution (from Plot, Theme, the Narrative Arc, and Narrative Patters by Professors Ron Layne and Rick Lewis, Sandhills Community College). The Japanese call this Jo-ha-kyu.

You can even try it yourself. Imagine you are at a game rooting for your team. Try shouting “fight! fight! fight!”. Now try shouting “fight! fight! fight! fight!”. It doesn’t work. It feels off. And so does Sucker Punch. Zack Snyder presents a visually interesting piece, unfortunately it is out of balance with itself and the Rule of Three.

Warning: I’ll try not to include spoilers, but it just might happen.

Quests / Action Scenes

Sucker Punch is a quest story. The Wise Man tells Baby Doll that she must find five items to be free: map, fire, knife, key, and a mystery item. But in the film Baby Doll only tells the others of four items, and they really only quest for three:

1. Map: They fight the WWI steam soldiers (which I loved)
2. Fire: They fight the dragon
3. Knife: They go after the bomb and nearly fail

So far this is good. Three quests, each progressively harder, makes for a good story. Big bad wolf kind of thing.

Three but Not Three

So the story satisfies the Rule of Three, except they still need to get the final two items. If Snyder put in two more quests, the movie would simply be too long and fall under its own weight. So he short cuts it.

For the key, there is no quest. When they are finished with the knife quest, Baby Doll simply stabs Blue and takes the key. And the ‘Mysterious 5th Item’ is simply a realization at the end of the movie. No quest. No fight. And no great mystery.

The narrative arc has plateaued. The story is headed toward the denouement, but we are left hanging for a while in between action and resolution.

Back to the Beginning

When we take the opening action into account, the balance of the movie is further upset.

We could argue that the first fight scene against the giant robot samurai is Baby’s first quest (and that it ties to the mysterious fifth object). It is certainly a rite of passage for her as she enters this new world and learns how to fight to be free.

As presented in Sucker Punch this scene is left hanging on its own. It simply isn’t relevant to the rest of Snyder’s movie. Had Snyder integrated this into the quest story line and cut the quests down to three, the movie would have been more balanced. In fact, there is a classic story outline that Sucker Punch could have paralleled.

Beowulf

There are some ready similarities to Sucker Punch and Beowulf and had Snyder used them, it could have been a more balanced and enjoyable movie.

1. Grendel = Samurai robot fight (solo fight against giant)
2. Grendel’s mom = Steam soldiers (hero needs help)
3. Dragon = Dragon (hero needs help and they barely survive)

Grendel & Robot Samuri

Beowulf finds himself in a long house and single-handedly fights the giant monster the rest of the great warriors are afraid of. They can only sit by and watch. But in doing so, they can gain a bit of strength and help themselves.

Baby Doll finds herself in a long house and single-handedly fights three giant monsters. Had Snyder structured the movie differently, this could have been the first quest; Baby Doll proving to the other that escape can be accomplished.

Grendel’s Mom & Steam Soldiers

In order to defeat Grendel’s mom, Beowulf and a bunch of men go to the lake. Beowulf descends solo, but he needs the help of a special sword to defeat his foe.

Likewise, Baby Doll and her friends head off to the trenches to defeat the steam-powered soldiers. While Baby Doll doesn’t fight solo with the others waiting in the wings is OK, the point is she needs help this time around. And let’s not forget that Amber does pull out the mech warrior….

Dragons

Beowulf’s finally quest is to defeat a dragon. He tries, but simply cannot do it alone; Wiglaf comes to his aid and Beowulf dies in the end.

The dragon is Sucker Punch is dead-on obvious. Except the dragon wasn’t all that difficult. Had the dragon and train/bomb quests been altered and merged Snyder would have been onto something: Baby Doll needing help to defeat a powerful dragon, one of their number (preferably Baby Doll) getting mortally wounded; dieing to save the others.

In the End

At the end of the movie Snyder does give us (no questing needed) the Mysterious 5th Item as Baby Doll realizes she can’t save herself, but she can save Sweet Pea. Like Beowulf, Baby Doll does die (a death of self) and it would have been a noble sacrifice, had we cared.

But the end was too rushed as Snyder wrapped up the knife, key and 5th item quests in quick fashion and tied up loose ends with two quick and unsatisfying gunshots. By the time we get to Baby Doll’s realization a) we saw it coming and weren’t surprised, and b) were ready for the unbalanced story arc to finish falling over.

Ultimately, the action, story arc and quests simply don’t add up.

What stopped me was not the dated language — in fact I rather enjoyed that at first — no, it was them endless repetition of the same basic facts. One can only say “they loved death and hated life” so many different ways before it becomes tiring. And tiring it has become.

I’ll confess another hindrance: psychology.

When reading an ebook of short fiction, one expects the stories to, in fact, be short. Unfortunately, this ebook, The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume VIII: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories does not indicate how long each “short” story is. Once I found out that Copper Cylinder was 291 pages long in the original, the wind was taken out of my sail.

I’d love to know how the book ends, but I just can’t make it.

My old car, a 2001 Mazda Protege5, had a poorly marked out speedometer.

It was marked in 20 mph increments, none which correspond to ‘normal’ speed limits. (The speed limits in Michigan tend to be 25, 35, 45, 65 and 70 miles per hour.)

Additionally, the second largest, unmarked, tick marks I was always mistaking as 5 mile per hour increments. For example, when glancing down I would see the indicator at the tick above 40 and assume I was doing 45. I would then need to remind myself that it was actually 50 mph.

To make things worse, if you look again at the photo, you’ll notice that there are only 4 minor tick marks between the 10 mile per hour increments. So, I could do an indicated 40, 42, 44, 46, 48 or 50. To travel at 45 mph I would have to split the difference between small tick marks.

The result: I spent way too much time looking at speedometer instead of the road.

(Photo of dash cluster from Mr. Jinks’ Flickr stream.)

I wrote this essay in 1993 or 1994 (just 4 years after Tim Berners-Lee switched on the first World Wide Web server). Its my investigation into this new thing called computer conferencing. At the time, I was studying literature at Eastern Michigan University, and I wanted to discuss the narrative impact of online discussions.

A couple of notes about the essay.

First, there are a couple of inline examples, but the original essay also had lengthier excerpts. They were green-bar printouts from the VAX/VMS system. At the time there was no way of saving the chat sessions (that I knew of); not that it matter, I didn’t have a computer (I typed the original essay on a Brother word processor). Sadly, those printouts are long gone.

Second, I explain emoticons. Sorry about that.

Lastly, the only changes I have made to the original essay are corrections to a couple of typos and the addition of hyperlinks. I love that the essay about hypertext originally had no links, and that some of the references can now be linked.

So as embarrassing as it may be, I give you:

Computer Caucusing as Text: a step beyond hypertext

Robert Coover’s article, “Hyperfiction: Novels for the Computer” (The New York Book Review, Aug. 23, 1993), got me thinking about a past-time of my own in a new light: computer conferencing.  In a nut shell, computer conferencing usually utilizes a VAX/VMS system (such as ours at Eastern) on which multiple users can log in from computer labs, or home terminals.  The users can use the system to do various programming (Pascal, cobal, etc.), however, more germane to our topic, there is caucus, which contains numerous conferences available to the users.  They range from course specific conferences, such as conferences for computer science, political science, and English courses (which have restricted access for the students in those specific classes), to open forums on which anyone with a VAX account can join.  Also available are programs known as MUD, Multi-User Dungeons, which are interactive role playing games similar to the popular Dungeons and Dragons® game system.

There are conferences like Talknet, for general comments on various facets of life; Music, for discussions on all types of music; Political conferences, Science Fiction, Literati (for presentations of user’s original works), ChaOs (it is as the name implies), and many others.  The interesting thing about these conferences is what they allow the user to do.  They allow for the users to interact with each other in a way that Coover’s Hypertext systems may one day be able to do.  There is one thing that I should clarify: hypertext, as Coover talks about it, and computer conferencing are not directly comparable, however they do have certain similarities.

Hypertext is “a new narrative art form, readable only on the computer… .”  It is much like its printed counter parts with the exception that, on the computer, you are not limited to the page.  This sounds rather obvious, so let me expand; a fictional work in hypertext allows you, the reader, to go through the work in whatever order you desire.  We are all familiar with a novel: it begins, move through a progression of scenes usually building upon each other to a climax and then a resolution.  In hypertext the reader chooses various scene-options and builds the story to his or her own whims.  Coover refers specifically to Stuart Moulthrop’s “Victory Garden” in which there are available “nearly a thousand text spaces and over 2,800 electronic links between them.”  You enter the text via a sentence constructed word-for-word by the reader from a set of choices yielding up to “56 different sentences on the themes of beginnings, labyrinths, time, America, words, dreams, truth.  When completed, these opening sentences link to at least 47 different starting points . . . from which there are . . . 194 separate links to other text spaces . . .” each with their own branches.  As you can see, there are an almost countless number of possibilities within the hypertext work.

Nonetheless, it is still a fixed piece.  There is a finite number of possibilities (any mathematicians out there can figure out the total number of possible permutations, if you’d like).  In the end, you begin, move through the work, and end.  The multi-path aspect of hypertext allows you to read the work numerous time, but the basic story line is fixed.  Looking at the examples given by Coover, utilizing “Victory Garden,” each one has the same basic elements to it: Jude Busch seducing Victor Garden, Emily going off to the Gulf War (with variations on her death, with one possibility of her not dying), Emily’s Dear John letter to Victor, and Boris Urquhart having his break-down.  Arrange them how you will, even changing from present to past tense narration, these elements are all you have to work with.  In some respects it is a large electronic, albeit complex and interesting, Chose-Your-Own-Adventure story.

It is much like the various Dungeons and Dragons® style computer games on the market.  These games allow you to choose different characters, even custom create characters, and move through the adventure multiply times.  Each time you play is bound to be different, however, the basic element is the same.  It all boils down to moving through various obstacles and killing the big-bad-monster.

But what if the game didn’t have an ending?  What if the game was constantly changing?  And those changes you could control?  And what if you were interacting with other users at the same time and they were changing things?

Sounds interesting doesn’t it?  Well, that is exactly what MUD is.  This multi-user dungeon is available through virtually any computer network; all you need to know is the computer address to get on.  Once on, you join other users, some of whom may be playing at the same time as you, in the middle of a computer world.  There is no real beginning or ending to the game.  In theory, you could play forever.  The objective is simply to move about the world and advance your character up through various ranks.  You do not have to do this, but it is the general goal of most players.  Upon reaching a certain level, Wizard, you can effect changes to the world, changing cities, creating new areas for others to explore.  The only end comes when (if) your  character meets his or her untimely demise at the hands of some monster, or even another player-user.

Now, what if we applied this same idea to a narrative?  Imagine a piece of fiction which has no beginning and no ending, and one which the user-readers control the action, flow and direction.  In one sense, this is what the VAX conferences are like.

These computer network  systems allows users to communicate across the globe on various bulletin boards (electronic conferences) on as many different topics as you can imagine.  Using Eastern’s VAX conference in specific (it is the only one with which I have direct, hands-on  knowledge),  you can join one, or more, of the conferences and find yourself in the middle of various narratives.  And, if you happen to have your own idea, you have the ability to add a new Item, thus providing another direction for the narrative.

I should point out that each conference consists of several different Items.  Each Item is a different topic (such as, in the SciFi conference, the items range from Star Trek Movies, Star Trek TV, to Science Fiction novels, and so on) in which you place your Responses.

Now this narrative that you, as user, involve yourself in can be very simple.  You can simply log-on to the system, join one conference (the one for your Into to Computers class for example), and read what others are saying about the variety of topics.  In the example above, the items would most likely be different projects/assignments that you have to do for credit in the course.  Not very exciting.  Even if the topics move away from homework, they may only be discussions about the class and things that you are learning.

Or, you could join multiple conferences and just observe what is happening.

Or, you can join multiple conferences and respond to them, thus immersing yourself in the narration.

The more you use the system, the more involved with it you become.  You begin to build up layers of narration that are not possible in conventional printed methods, or even hypertext novels.  You discover the same set of people on different conferences.  You begin sending private messages to them thus furthering the layers of narration.

It can be argued that this is not narration like the hypertext novel, but is instead just a bunch of people talking to each other electronically instead of in person.  Even so, that is a process of narration.  But I think the conferences go further than that.

Most of what happens on the various conferences is an exchange of ideas.  On music, for instance, you may find an ongoing discussion (or start your own) on different aspects of jazz.  Several people will express their various opinions on jazz, their favorite artist, etc., but before too long the topic begins to change.  This constant permutation of the topics is one of the most interesting aspects of caucus.  It is thought this exchange of ideas and movement through topics that allows the user to become integrated with the work going on around him/her.

The regular users develop their own style, their own computer personalities, which usually reflect their real personalities, but often provide them with a way to open up that they wouldn’t do in person.  Most regular uses adopt a computer pen-name.  Twist, ThreeDots, La Perrita con Salsa, Tongue, Entropy, Wordsmith, and Manos are just a few.  These caucus names provide the user with a sense of freedom from their everyday lives.  They become characters in this ever-expanding electronic narrative.  There are even ‘physical’ or ‘emotional’ gestures that have been developed:

( :      =   happy; also : )

(you can do it either way if you are right or left handed)

) :     =  sad

( ;     = wink; also in the inverse

: P     =  stick your tongue out

There are others, but these constitute the most widely used.  These gestures allow the user to move off the page (screen) and include visual images that we usually see when speaking in person with someone.

To see how this running narrative works, let’s look at a couple of examples.  (These examples can be found at the end of this work.  These are only three very brief items out of several hundred; it would be nearly impossible to print up everything that is going on on caucus.  This is just a taste, and to really appreciate it you need to log-on.) When I introduced caucus, I said that you find yourself in the middle of an ongoing narrative with no beginning or end.  I should clarify that.  There are beginnings and endings.  Obviously caucus itself had to begin sometime, and each conference has a specific beginning.  Furthermore, any user can start a new item at almost any time.  This allows the user to become a part of the narrative unlike the hypertext novels.  In hypertext, you can follow various paths, in an almost countless variations, however, you cannot create paths.  And part of the enjoyment of caucus is to create an item and watch where it goes.

And things can end.  Occasionally a conference becomes full and needs to be restarted.  But, unlike hypertext, caucus is not over, there is no conclusion, only a lack of space requiring a restart, and moreover, once it is restarted, the whole narrative process continues with new paths and new ideas.

Here is the beginning of item 114 from Chaos:


Item 114         Another item for the hell of it.         Manos: The Hands Of Fate

Just an item for the hell of it.

An item that will hopefully not get frozen or deleted.

Gene "Dryad's Bane" Goosenberry:  "wubba wubba wubba"

Twist:  "just for the hell of it I should freeze this item.  ; )  Or better yet . . . ."

Manos:  "Oh, how original, Twist."

Gene:  "the origami twist. . . get one now"

Twist: "just send me $49.95 today!"

Gene:  "sure . . . do you want the monopoly 50's or the ones I have with goofy on them?"

Twist:  "Oooohhh . . . The ones with Goofy please.  % )

Cactus Jack:  "Oh it was long ago and it was far away and it seems so very far and if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car and objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are"


There is no real point to this item, but it does illustrate how the conversation segue from one topic to the next; sometimes smoothly, as when “original” prompted the though “origami” which then lead to the discussion of play money.  Or they can be more abrupt as Cactus Jack’s interruption is.  There are also visual cues in this item.  Twist, who is the organizer of Chaos (each conference has its own organizer who is responsible for maintaining that particular conference), in his first response ends it with  ; )  a smile with a wink.  Without the smile it would be difficult to know how to interpret the meaning behind his response. But the smile serves the same purpose as voice inflection and lets us know that it was in jest–a smile of sarcasm.

You can also see that conventional stylistic features of punctuation, sentence structure and paragraphing are all broken or altered.  There is often very little capitalization in the responses and punctuation consists of a lot of ellipses.  Or a lack of punctuation all together.  The language used can also be interesting to look at.  Within this Chaos item you can see sounds spelled out (the Hmm and Oooohhhh….).  In poking around the different conferences you will find phonetic spellings, spellings emphasizing (or creating) accents, creative uses of punctuation and sentence structure.  Each user developed his/her own way of typing responses for stylistic effect–caucus is not just talking, or reading, but also visualizing the text.

Moving over to Literati, we find an item by Cactus Jack.  “Thought I’d include an item for the discussion, criticism and general postings of short prose, consdiering [sic] that’s hwo [sic] I usually write.  Please feel free to contribute you own prose, or discuss the form in general.”  The item begins with Cactus’s presentation of a short work followed up by a short piece from Manos.  The two pieces, from two different authors, complement each other and form a new narrative.  Manos was able to read the item and then create part of it; he becomes involved with the text in a way unlike that of hypertext.

Also, as you can see by reading the provided transcript, the item moves from this short fiction into critical discussion of the works.  Once again, this provides the user with the opportunity to become involved with the narrative, even if s/he doesn’t feel like writing something creative, the can influence the course of the narrative.  It also encourages those who don’t think of themselves as writers to try.  Most people find it very satisfying to have their work published, and this is a form of publication and general disbursement.

Cactus Jack’s item, along with the idea of hypertext, inspired me to try an experiment on literati.  I started my own item; an item to be a collective narrative.  I did not impose a topic or style of any kind.  The only rules that I set out were that the item was to remain solely narrative, no drift (straying from the topic in the form of discussion of unrelated things), and to refrain from making critical evaluations (they tend to lead to drift).  I wanted to see if users were/are interested in creating their own fiction (non-fiction?) work.

The first decision that I had to make was how to start.  I had created the item, but should I put in a response?  Should I start the story or wait and let others begin it?  I realized that the first response was going to set the tone and direction for the piece (at least for a time).  I decided to put in two brief, vague sentences to begin things.  And immediately had my first unexpected result.  Mine was not the first response.  Manos was on-line at the same time and his response was entered before mine.  This was an aspect of the computer that I didn’t think about–the time distortion.

The story now had two beginnings.  Again I had a decision to make.  Should I delete my response and let the other users carry on with Manos’s prompt?  I thought it would be more interesting to leave both beginnings and see what happened.

As it turned out, both were used and, over the course of the narrative, became integrated.  Manos’s response contained more information, especially description, than my own.  My idea prompted Meike to introduce dialogue and the ‘conflict’ while Manos began to define the background we were creating.

The collective responses have begun to form a very interesting narrative.  The combination of different writing styles and techniques along with the different voices give the text a uniqueness that hypertext cannot provide.

Shortly there-after, however, I found another problem.  The narrative had stopped.  Six days had passed with no new additions, and the bulk of the old ones were from Manos.  On another item in literati, Meike asked people to contribute to my narrative and I decided to give them a little more instruction.  In re-reading the responses, I came to the conclusion that some people may not like the direction that the narrative was going.  I wanted them to feel free to take the narrative in which ever direction they wanted, and so decided to include my editorial note.  This seems to have helped and the text has begun to grow again.

The users have introduced three characters (there where two original, with a third added shortly after) and have developed a connection between all three.  It will be interesting to see if the narrative digresses off to anyone of the three people and explores their background and life.   As of this moment  this narrative is still being created and, hopefully, it will continue to grow.

Hypertext is an interesting new development in the textual world and I am looking forward to further developments of it.  But, books on disk, even those that you can take in any direction you desired, are still limited to the information on the disk.  Computer networking, specifically caucusing, on the other hand, allows the users to interact unlike any other media form.  It allows you to discuss politics, your math homework, movies, music, literature, or to create your own works–quite possibly with people in Sweden while you sit at home in Ypsilanti.  And with the developments in Virtual Reality, who knows what the texts of the future could look like. . . .