Any good novel, then ...can afford its reader a way of being - if not being there, in the other world, then being here, in this. It proposes a locus of reclamation, becomes a place inside the place we are situated, a charged time contained within the more diffuse time of daily living (Birkerts, 1996: 10) [23]
In this chapter I will be discussing how one can make hyperfictions both more 'hyper' and more apposite as fictions.[24] If, as Birkerts claims, the raison d'être of the novel is to offer its readers a 'locus of reclamation', could and should this aesthetic of the novel be applied to hyperfiction writing as well?
Since there is a broad spectrum of viewpoints from which one could approach this discussion, I have chosen to focus mainly on how one could increase the level of interaction between reader and 'work', including the possibility of presenting the reader with a more dynamic and flexible structure than the static hypertext linking. Consequently emphasis is placed on the structure and overall design of the hyperfiction product rather than on the actual content, that is the stories contained within it.[25]To broaden my 'hyperizons', I have tried to find inspiration in other genres of computer 'fictions': the part exploratory hypermedia-production Sophie's World and the interactive film, The Pandora Directive. Thus, in my attempt to engage with these issues, I have tried to envisage what could be achieved within the limits imposed by the authorial programs available on the market today, in order to avoid resorting to speculative 'science fiction' thinking in the literal sense of this phrase.
One of the cardinal characteristics of hyperfiction writing is (or at least ought to be) an enhanced interaction between the reader of the hyperfiction work and the work itself. In theory, this interaction should take place on a level that allows the reader to become a co-writer himself, thus through his interaction effacing any succinct and authoritative distinction between the original author and himself. Judging from the hyperfictions examined in the previous chapter, in current practice the interaction is limited to the possibility of choosing between a number of ways of in which to navigate through the storyweb. In fact, when reading a hyperfiction the authoritative control of the author is experienced as being much stronger than in traditional works of fiction. Furthermore the hyperwriting structure seems to have given birth to a kind of fiction of a tableau-like and static nature that does not fulfill the theorists' promises of a prospectively organic and evolving textual structure.
In consequence, this chapter will examine and discuss these particular questions: how does one achieve a more flexible structure or, more to the point, how does one provide the reader with the feeling of interacting with a more flexible and dynamic storyweb that ideally makes viable an organic development of a number of tightly interwoven, 'immersable' stories?
Evidently pertinent to the possibility of finding a solution to these question is a precursory examination of the present 'nature' of the hyperfiction reader. Throughout the history of print the reader that has been addressed, implicitly or explicitly, in the works of fiction, has always been a reader of a 'general' identity, (general in this context meaning of a 'non-individual' nature). With the advent of hyperfiction this condition has partly been changed. The overall hypertext structure now allows the reader to perform a reading that follows the course of his particular whims and associations. But, nonetheless, the printed content of the work still does not accommodate itself to the individual reader. Hence the reader of the work remains a 'general' reader in that he or she still reads the exact same words as all other readers and in so far that, for all the program 'running' the storyweb is able to register, it could still be anybody pressing the keys on the keyboard. In order for the reader to become a true 'interactor' would not a truly interactive hyperfiction obligate an interaction that allows for individuality on all levels of its structure?[26]
Hence, a genuinely interactive hyperfiction should be able to address its reader on a 'face-to-face' level, allowing individuality on both sides of the screen. This might be implementable by, for instance, partly adjusting the text to the choices of the reader, making room for individual contributions to the work or, in extremum, 'reading' the reader himself and adjusting the hyperfiction according to its 'diagnosis'. To a certain degree, the CD-ROM's discussed below do seem to make room for this kind of 'individualised' interaction which is why they might be worthwhile examining although these products have not originally been designed and written as 'pure' hyperliterary works.
The CD-ROM Sophie's World is based on Jostein Garder's bestseller and semi-fictive book of the same title. The original book is intended to be an alternative and relatively easy accessible introduction to the history and subjects of philosophy. Consequently, in order to facilitate the digestion of relatively 'heavy' philosophical matter, the factual information about various philosophers and their theories is related through the fictive character of Alberto who appears out of thin air in the beginning of the book to give the young girl, Sophie, a course in philosophy. Hence, although the CD-ROM Sophie's world has a clearly structured narrative line, this product is mainly exploratory of genre, providing its user with a fairly detailed factual section on various philosophers (including brief introductions to the Cultural History of the centuries they belong to) and philosophical issues.
The course (and the book) unfolds as an on-and-off Socratic dialogue between teacher and pupil (Alberto and Sophie), with Sophie representing the allegedly naive reader's point of view. The narrative crux is to be found approximately halfway through the book, when Alberto and Sophie themselves are revealed as being fictive characters, appearing in a story written by Major Knox as a birthday present for his daughter Hilde. However, on the CD-ROM, it is not as characters in a book, but of course, as characters in a computer program!
The CD-ROM producers have tried to capture the dialogic character of the book -and have furthermore extended it to include the 'reader' of the CD-ROM - by inventing a 'dialogue-engine' that automatically displays the dialogues between Sophie and Alberto and furthermore makes it possible for the reader to enter answers to Alberto's philosophical questions in a separate text box. In turn Alberto responds specifically to the reader's input. Unfortunately (most likely due to the pedagogic intentions lurking), the reader more often than not can only answer with 'yes' or 'no' or specific words and quotes (to be found in the factual parts of the product) which makes it difficult to conceive of this interaction as being true-to-life dialogue.
Nevertheless, this 'inclusion' of the reader is successfu