Hypertext: Storyspace to Twine

"This chapter examines the transformations of literary hypertext as a nonlinear digital writing format and practice since its inception in the late 1980s. We trace its development from the editorially closed and demographically exclusive writerly practices associated with first generation hypertext (also known as the Storyspace School) to the participatory, inclusive, and arguably more democratic affordances of the freely accessible, userfriendly online writing tool Twine. We argue that while this evolution, alongside other participatory forms of social media writing, has brought creative media practices closer than ever to the early poststructuralist-inspired theory of “wreadership” (Landow 1992), the discourses and practices surrounding Twine perpetuate ideological and commercially reinforced binaries between literature and gameplay. In view of the recent proliferation of text-based literary games, however, we argue that media literacies are bound to change and adapt to the cognitive challenges and distinct immersive qualities of literary-ludic hybrid artifacts, and readers/players will develop media-literate strategies of engaging with the clash between hyper- and deep attention" (Hayles 2007)