It was a dark and stormy night . . .

Please note: no animals were injured in the making of this story . . . (but maybe a few humans)

This amazing story is available through this shareable link from google drive which will allow you to first see the html language which is quite lengthy and impressive. Once you download it and open the file, you are ready to read!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_C2kJD3qghZ74fMNh4QGw4kqmBIEcYI4/view?usp=sharing

or you can unzip this file: It was a dark and stormy night (1) (1).html

The creation of this Twine story and a few thoughts:

The mapping of the Twine fascinated me as it showed all of the links between the passages. The connections of links are more obvious in the building of the story than they are in the reading.  It was even possible to link back to previous passages and have the reader re-live passages or scenes. I was fascinated with the building process and got a little over enthusiastic perhaps. It may be annoying to some; but not to my students who read choose your own adventure stories over and over again to see different outcomes.  I am reminded of how text has changed from words in books written in a linear fashion or a “complete or closed verbal structure” (Bolter, 2001, p.77) to a more circular rendition through the use of hyperlinks.

This reminds me of my English departments reporting comment bank which states: Student “can construct and create by choosing particular formats (linear, circular, and iterative) in the creation of story/text.” In the past we may have thought of a story or text being anything other than linear but to me that seems “unnatural.”  “The supporters of hypertext may even argue that hypertext reflects the nature of the human mind itself— that because we think associatively, not linearly, hypertext allows us to write as we think” (Ch. 3. 2001, p. 43).  Ted Nelson was one who thought “hypertext was natural to the mind” (Bolter, 2001, 42).  I know that my mind certainly works in circles of association -sometimes I even speak this way; words need to weave and twine around each other. Yes, the pun is intended as the Twine does just that as it circles back and steps sideways and forward.

There has been criticism that hyperlinks do not truly reflect all association. Bolter (2001) mentions supporters of books such as   Birkerts (1994) and Slouka (1995), claim that “as authors prescribe links, they deny the reader the choice of making her own associations . . . [by] letting them “choose links only gives the illusion of control (Ch. 3, p. 42). Indeed my own Twine appears to give choices to the reader and yet I force the reader to make a choice or manoeuvre them to circle back to the choice I want them to take. Sometimes, I did not even give a choice; choice is an illusion in this case.  Editors of encyclopedias decide what to include and what to exclude in both print and on the world wide web (Bolter, 2001, Ch. 5, p. 90).  Do you wonder what I have left out of my story?  There was much more but I will save that for a sequel – I really have enjoyed this experience that much.

The product itself, The Dark and stormy night twine, is rough but as I have said, I was much more mesmerized by the process. It was like a puzzle putting all the pieces together and to tie the ending up . . . well, sort of tie it up. I have included some of the twine statistics which I found quite by accident.  There were a total of 30 passages and 41 links which translates to quite a lot of circling back in for the reader, maybe until they got it right.  again, I emphasis the control that the reader thinks they have but actually do not.

I wondered if the process and being so focused on it was the reason for the grammatical errors which I would not have made if I had written the story in a linear fashion on paper. That would have forced my mind to focus on the mundane side of grammar rather than the creative. I had thought to edit them further but decided not to as a statement to the power of the technology. I know wonder if this might be why my own students seem to forget capitals, punctuation and spelling. maybe they are really focused on the creation. Or is punctuation changing – I had no idea that a ‘.’ or full stop was rude in a message, tweet of chat (Zaltman).

In addition to correcting grammar and spelling*, I might have also taken more time to get the formatting of each passage perfected. Again, I was more interested in the story than its appearance . . . except for the lovely dark background.  I did discover how to edit the formatting but chose not to as I think it suits the dark theme of the story.  I do not think Twine 2 is easy to download sound effects and graphics to (this according to the site) but the story is meant to be read in a dark, deadly quiet space.

The narrator “voice”was modelled after the Twine example of “The temple of No” with a cheeky humorous tone but with a bit cleaner language as I would like to share my Twine with my grade 8/9 classes. The narrator(s), maybe I was arguing with myself, I envisioned arguing throughout the story but this may have been hard to maintain. By using a second person perspective, and “you” in the story even more engagement is created along with the illusion of control. I think it is something students would appreciate and maybe even like to try. Last Halloween, we read a choose your own adventure in class using a google slide show with linked slides which was a big hit and later we participated in a BBC refugee simulation (a bit more serious) but the interactiveness of the activity was highly engaging for the students. To be able to create and understand linking and the opportunity to control it adds yet another layer to this educational process.

*some grammatical and spelling errors have now been corrected after sharing with a small group ( 2 students and 1 educator) for feedback. There were more errors than I had first thought. DIY and feedback are valuable.

 

References:

Zaltman, H. 102. New Rules: The Allusionist. podcast. with guest McCulloch, G.  http://theallusionist.org/new-rules

Bolter, J.D. (2001). Chapter 3: Hypertext and the Remediation of Text.  Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print . Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 27-44.

Bolter, J.D. (2001). Chapter 5:. The Electronic Book.  Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print . Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp.77-98.