What I'm onto here is writing and researching and thinking about hypertext fiction. For those of you familiar with it already, enough said--you may want to go back to the Contents. For those of you unfamiliar with it, hypertext fiction (aka hyperfiction, interactive fiction, nonlinear fiction) is a new art form that while not necessarily made possible by the computer was certainly made feasible by it. Its creators make use of hypertext--of which the Web is only one widespread albeit limited incarnation--to create fiction with many features uncharacteristic of print fiction: multiple paths through the same text; multiple endings (and beginnings); questions posed to the reader which, once answered, influence what the reader will read; audiovisual attachments; navigable maps; and so on and so on. Readers seeking more extensive definitions of hypertext fiction are invited to browse through the Theory and Criticism section or, better yet, simply start reading a few works--artists always outstrip their would-be definers.
With hundreds of works of computer mediated fiction or poetry available either on disk, largely through the Eastgate Systems catalog, or on the net, hypernarrative, its definition as open-ended as the many-faceted reading experience it engenders, is a primary way of storytelling in the era of the World Wide Web.
In the 21st Century, readers will turn on and interact with
literature that is displayed on affordable, book-sized computers.
Electronic fiction forms will include "narrabases" (nonsequential novels that rely on large computer databases); "narrative data structures" that elegantly organize fictional information on eye-pleasing computer screens; complex narrative investigations based on the adventure story model developed in computer games; and stories told collaboratively by groups of writers in online communities. Computers may even store their own observations and use them to tell their own stories in their own words.
Eine neue Hörspielfassung von Franz Kafkas "Der Process" macht jedem möglich, den Roman-Kapiteln eine eigene Reihenfolge zu geben. Welches die richtige ist, weiß nämlich niemand.