similarly to the spaces in a comic book, all work relies on “the gap”- the space between action in which an audience needs to assume what happens. These assumptions are based on past experience and cultural context, so it would make sense that we read “not with the intent of the author”. We apply our own learnings to these situations- say in one frame, we see someone holding a gun, then the screen goes to black, and we hear a gunshot- we can only assume who was shot, and we make these assumptions based on our knowledge of our surroundings.

This is used frequently in drama television; Grey’s Anatomy, Gossip Girl, and all the other typical girl shows I watch. Then again, it also happens at the end of GTA III. Luckily, in TV shows, we are given closure when the next episode comes out and we finally see what happened.

And that’s how hypertext works too, hypertext leaves way for recurrence, and takes away the linearity of text- because we are the active audience, we make the narrative choices, we [somewhat] control the story, just reducing “the gap”.