LECTURER IN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS
Publishers and writers have had the same definition of a book for thousands of years, since Ancient Greece: “The words ‘biblios’ or ‘byblos’ are translatable as either ‘papyrus’ the material, or as the object consisting of papyrus on which it is placed. The common translation “book” is misleading” (Havelock, 2011, p. 41). The word “book” meant […]
Hypertext writers went beyond the book metaphor by introducing chunk-style or puzzle-like stories. Aarseth (1994) explains that “the main feature of hypertext is discontinuity—the sudden displacement of the user’s position in the text,” (p. 60). This discontinuity is clearly seen in website functionality. Wardrip-Fruin (2004) also postulates that the definition of hypertext has become synonymous […]
The hypertext novel is known for its puzzle-like quality because it is read in multiple chunks as the hyperlinks take readers into another space with a new section of text. It becomes the reader’s role to piece the story together into a narrative that makes sense. Schneider (2005) explains that the “non-linearity or non-sequentiality, which […]
Looking at examples of hypertext books there are only a handful that have been critically examined. Paul Hackman notes, “fifteen years after the first generation of hypertext novels emerged, hypertext literature remains on the fringe of literary studies” (2011, p. 86). One of the reasons for the lack of hypertext fiction novels, besides the issues […]
The new digital medium of hypertext fiction requires a narrative form because of its non-linear design. In regards to this issue Landow (1992) writes, “either one simply cannot write hypertext fiction […] or else Aristotelian definitions and descriptions of plot do not apply to stories read and written within a hypertext environment” (p. 101). The […]