Hypertext Fiction and Theory English 715B
Michael Groden Winter 1999

Hypertext writing exercise - due Friday, February 12

The assignment is to write your own small hypertext using Storyspace (the software used for "Afternoon," "Quibbling," and "Patchwork Girl.").

Storyspace is available on all the computers in UC 2, Stevenson-Lawson 40 and 96, and the lab in the Natural Sciences Building. Click on the icon labelled "Storyspace Application." Storyspace is also installed on two of the computers in UC 6.

The manual, "Getting Started with Storyspace," is in the English 715 folder in Pat Dibsdale's office.

There are various tutorials described in the first few chapters of the manual, and you are welcome to familiarize yourself with the program by trying the tutorials or else by just playing around with the program. The files that the tutorials are based on (Gettysburg Bibliography, etc.) are all installed along with Storyspace. In the labs, their icons are all prefaced with the word "Storyspace."

When you begin to work, you will be starting a new file. After that, you can choose Open from the file menu and choose the file on your diskette.

Your hypertext can be on any topic you choose and can be fiction or nonfiction, or even poetry. It should contain at least 15 text spaces (it can be more, of course), and the spaces can be linked as simply or as intricately as you want.

To view your work in progress, get to any text space (double click the title of a space to get to its text), and then navigate through it using the buttons. (These should be familiar from "Afternoon" or from the exercise in Chapter 4 of "Getting Started.")

Save your hypertext with some kind of identifying name of no more than 8 letters (your name or the title are the most obvious names) on a diskette in the "A:" drive. Save your work often, even after every change (go to the "File" menu and then select "Save"), because Storyspace tends to crash or freeze often. Save your work on a diskette, and submit it on that diskette or on a copy.

When you save your work, two files will probably appear on the disk. One will have the name you gave and the extension .SSP, and the other will have the same name and the extension .SNI. If, when you try to open your file, Storyspace tells you it can't find it, click on "Show all files" at the bottom of the "Open" screen, and try both the .SSP and .SNI files. One of them should open.

Please submit your hypertext, with both the .SSP and .SNI files (if there are both), on a diskette by Feb. 12. I'll ask you to show your hypertext to the class using the projector, and to talk about what you tried to do, including what worked and didn't work, on Feb. 15.

Have fun.

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