There were a lot of great questions for this week’s readings – I had a hard time choosing just one to focus on! In the end, I settled on question #7, as it’s something that feels very relevant to me as a writer. In case anyone needs a reminder, the question asks us to consider the way that both social media tools and hypertext might affect literature and story.
Social media and online writing communities
In the interests of keeping this brief, I decided to leave out discussion of self-publishers who closely emulate traditional publishing procedures. Instead, I’d like to think about the online communities of writers who share both original fiction and fan fiction for free on websites like Wattpad, fanfiction.net, and fictionpress.com.
E.L. James’s bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey began as a Twilight fan fiction in one of these fan communities, and an article by Jen Pecoskie and Heather Hill available through the UBC library catalog uses the book’s publication process to talk about the evolving relationship between reader and author. They make the point that the periodical and social format of writing in such communities
[allows] readers to consume and respond to the text as it was being created and, through their responses and feedback, for the author to get suggestions from readers and gain a readership following (616).
The article notes that in its fan fiction form, Fifty Shades apparently had 40,000 reviews on fanfiction.net. Some of it takes the form of expressing appreciation or excitement, but at other times there are more direct writing suggestions or ideas of how they wish the story to progress (617).
As Erika points out in our lesson this week, listeners of stories have more power than readers of text: “once words are written down, that’s it – they do not change.” However, it seems clear that the readers of online literature in this type of community has much more agency than those of traditional printed books, or even most self-published ebooks.
Hypertext
I’d like to share another article on the topic of hypertext: Davida Charney’s “The Impact of Hypertext on Processes of Reading and Writing.” It makes a lot of interesting points on the limitations of hypertext, and I’m inclined to agree with the idea that “the development of linear text forms, with their careful sequencing of ideas, may not reflect constraints of the print medium so much as the needs of readers and writers who depend on the text to help them sequence the flow of ideas through focal attention effectively” (9).
Her claim that it isn’t about the constraints of the print medium reminded me that examples of hypertext-like linking can be found in printed books long before digital media: in the footnote, for example, or in the choose-your-own adventure story. It may be easier now, but it isn’t all that different. And while digital hypertext may give the reader a new level of interaction with the text, and perhaps caters to the decreased attention spans of modern readers, it also leaves them with an awkward choice: coming to an interesting link in the middle of the story, do they follow it now, and interrupt the flow? Do they open it in a new tab in the background, to check later, when it won’t be as fresh or relevant in their mind? Or follow it without coming back and never know what they missed?
Works Cited
Charney, Davida. “The Impact of Hypertext on Processes of Reading and Writing.” <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~charney/homepage/Articles/Charney_hypertext.pdf>
Pecoskie, Jen (JL), and Heather Hill. “Beyond Traditional Publishing Models: An Examination of the Relationships between Authors, Readers, and Publishers.” Journal of Documentation 71.3 (2015): 609-26.
Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1.2 Story & Literature.” <https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-1/lesson-12/>
Cecily,
I was very intrigued by your argument, I wrote on the same question and approached it from a similar mind frame but a totally different lens, if that makes any sense. I didn’t even think about how hypertexts have a physical counter, the footnote. I never would have put that together, but you are totally right. I also really liked your example of how the role of reader and writer and totally blurred when it comes to fiction like 50 Shades of Grey’s start ( I cannot figure out how to italicize). I really enjoyed your work over all and I guess my only question would be do you think hyperlinks and footnotes aid the reader experience, or do they sit idly by as a sort of afterthought for the reader, I know you talked about this but I’d love to hear your own opinion.
Erica
🙂
Thanks for your comment! There are some fiction books with footnotes where it seems like they add a lot (Jonathan Stroud’s children’s books about Bartimaeus and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell come to mind). Then there are some works of older literature where they can offer really helpful context that I wouldn’t know on my own. But unless there’s a really good reason to have them, I think they do get in the way and can feel like an afterthought.
Hi Cecily,
Firstly, I’m elated at finding someone else who answered question 7, I was worried that it was a poor choice. I didn’t know that the “Fifty Shades” series had started as fan fiction, but it’s interesting how much of a role the reviewers played, or could have played, in its creation. The relationship between interactive stories (choose-your-own adventure stories), footnotes, and hypertext was also a unique comparison. I hadn’t thought of literature/print medium being a tool to allow people to organize ideas, but now that I have it only seems logical.
I would think that people with decreased attention span would click the link, read to a satisfactory point then go back to the original text knowing a little more.
Something that I’m curious about now is how direct feedback and listeners alter stories. Whether the message fundamentally remains the same, or if alterations represent a censoring of the original intent and content. What do you think?
Landon
Good points! I’m not sure if I would call it censoring, because the author or storyteller still gets to say whatever they want – it’s just that they might choose to change their mind as the story progresses. But that’s definitely an interesting thing to think about, because it would have some effect. You could make some comparisons to the many famous nineteenth-century novels that were originally published in periodicals.
Cecily,
It is interesting to hear where that book comes from, not something you would really think is related. Being able to have the creativity to expand on a singular topic and make it known by most is not something everyone possess. The internet is a great way to take a piece of work and spread it quickly.
I agree with the idea that the internet gives a reader a new level of interaction, lets be honest, none of us really have an attention span anymore. The internet is able to give us too many things at such fast level that people will settle for nothing less anymore.
Kathryn
🙂
Thank you for your thoughts!
Hey there Cecily!
I like how you mention that readers now-a-days have a shorter attention span; I can attest to this completely, as I use to be a very focused reader, but most of my reading these days is done via computer screen, enabling me to focus on just the story topic…you did a good job mentioning the tedious task of clicking hyperlinks which can entirely interrupt the reading flow! Ugh! However, it gives readers more information than ever. But how much information do we need, anyways, to get a story or the moral across? Do we constantly need so much backed-up information to prove something or can we simply get the message just from reading one thing? You mention the connection readers possess with the author while reading their work – in paper, in a novel, yes, connections are capable of being made. However, what about modern methods of telling stories, such as on a page on the internet, which have hyperlinks? Would you say that the interruption of hyperlinks and off topic memos take away from the message or moral of a story? Or do they add much more richness to a text, and is it up to readers to learn how to weave through the unimportant extra bits, and to get right to the moral?
-Arianne LaBoissonniere
🙂
I appreaciate your comment! When writing my post, I was mainly thinking about literature and fictional stories, and for that it seems like hyperlinks often detract from the reading experience rather than adding to it. (Though I mentioned some exceptions that I’ve encountered in my response to Erica’s comment.)