Hypertext
literature reassembled in “24 Hours with Someone you Know”
Some hypertexts stick closer to their literary origins. For example, Philippa J. Burne’s 24 Hours With Someone You Know (1996) looks like a book — mimicking the white pages with black text. The reader of this text embodies the protagonist of the story, making decisions for them in a choose-your-own-adventure approach. To advance the story the reader must make a decision. These narrative forks of visiting Polly, or Kate, or going to the pool, become the equivalent of turning the page.
This relatively simple hypertext ultimately creates clear narrative paths. Despite the agency of the reader for selection within the story, these hyperlinks do not reveal a whole other world or point of view. Rather the link advances the narrative in a linear way. In this regard, Manovich’s opposition between narrative and database (the ability to select from a set of options), do not come into tension since the user’s selection works to further fulfill a predetermined narrative (Manovich 90). Ultimately this piece shows how the dominant mode of linear narrative storytelling can still persist within hyperlinked texts.
This dominance of narrative limits the agency of the reader, rather encouraging their involvement through multiple reads. Although for some this approach to fiction is frustrating — issues arise with indecisive users or people who fear they have selected the wrong choice. There is no going back, and it is often hard to embrace one path over another. We see similar issues in Mosaic (2018), Soderbergh’s TV show app. Although there is the possibility to choose the order of narrative, with this option comes the anxiety of missing out — making it difficult to only embrace one narrative path when knowing there are other options.
