Abstract
While the investigation of creative writing as a research method is gathering apace, little work has been done into the specific case of hypertext fiction (fiction written through a digital medium). This paper argues that, while there remain certain similarities between paper-based and digital texts, fundamental differences in design and construction remain. If hypertext fictions are to be successfully understood, then the role and purpose of the digital writer needs to be more fully analysed as part of the creative process. This paper argues that Possible Worlds Theory offers a way forward. With its focus on the ontological structures created by hypertext fiction, Possible World Theory actively embraces narrative indeterminacy and ontological changeability. In this sense the method provides a structured means by which the creative manipulation of the unique affordances of a digital medium by a writer can be theorised.
Highlights
As Kroll and Harper have written, ‘the development of creative writing as a research discipline ... has not yet been well documented’ (2013, 1)
Ryan and Bell have shown how PWT offers a powerful analytical framework for analysing published hypertext fiction, this paper argues that it can provide a conceptual model by which the actual creative processes themselves can be considered
This paper has argued that there is a general lack of research into the actual creation of hypertext fictions
Summary
As Kroll and Harper have written, ‘the development of creative writing as a research discipline ... has not yet been well documented’ (2013, 1). Under ‘Subject Knowledge and Skills’, NAWE’s recommendations are unequivocal: creative writing courses need to provide students with ‘critical awareness – the ability both to contextualise writing within a given historical/cultural/stylistic framework, and to reflect constructively on the student’s own process and product’ (2008, 5). This chimes strongly with the QAA’s own discussion of creative writing in their subject benchmark statement for English
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