Storyspace 1

Critical Writing
Year: 
2002
Presented at Event: 
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Abstract (in English): 

Storyspace, a hypertext writing environment, has been widely used for writing, reading, and research for nearly fifteen years. The appearance of a new implementation provides a suitable occasion to review the design of Storyspace, both in its historical context and in the context of contemporary research. Of particular interest is the opportunity to examine its use in a variety of published documents, all created within one system, but spanning the most of the history of literary hypertext.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This paper is interesting for the technical background it provides on many often-analysed works of electronic literature.

Pull Quotes: 

A challenge peculiar to hypertext support is the difficulty of disambiguating a request for purely technical assistance from a request for help with rhetoric or literary interpretatioon.

The size of the link networks in these documents is often formidable. “In Small & Large Pieces”, a story of just 13,000 words, has 2,622 links. “Lust”, with just 1,731 words, has 141 links.

Because text links are revealed by pressing a special key with the hand that doesn’t hold the mouse, Storyspace encourages a two- handed reading posture.

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Jill Walker Rettberg