The main concepts or ‘take away ideas’ that I got and or found interesting from the Landow reading this week were:
ONE: The idea of ‘web-novels’
TWO: The four points of hypertext describing narrative and
THREE: The idea of plot in hypertext stories
ONE: The first idea of the ‘web-novel’ was interesting to consider. This is where ‘the HTML links solely to provide sequence.’ This is different from a lot of the concepts of hypertext and hyperlinks we have been reading about and exploring so it was good to look at another use for it.
TWO: The four point that Landow uses to describe the use of hypertext in narrative really helped to clear up some fuzziness I had surrounding the concept of hypertext as a whole. The four points that separate hypertext narrative from other forms, as described in the reading, are:
- The reader’s choice, intervention and empowerment.
- Inclusion of extra linguistic texts (images, motion, sound)
- The complexity of network structure and
- The degree of multiplicity and variation.
These points helped me to understand the ‘point’ and reason behind hypertext and the way in which narrative works.
THREE: The fact that hypertext story lack a plot in the classic sense is interesting to think about. When someone mentions plot I think of the events that navigate the reader/ audience/ listener etc. through the story being told. In hypertext the hyperlink and the consumer are what navigates the story. The usual linear experience becomes individual to each reader. In the classic form of plot there is a beginning middle and end. When it comes to hypertext there is no clear beginning or end.
Hypertext has created a new way of experience the idea of ‘plot’, as the consumer of the text you create and mold the text.