Two worlds collide: hypertext and rewriting

Abstract

Editors’ preface With the age of computers and the world wide web we have developed new ways of reading. Internet users have become used to reading short sections of text, linked by hypertext to other related sections of text, and being able to make decisions about what sections they read. This provides readers with choice and control over their own reading paths and directions. A new form of literature has developed that takes advantage of the changes in how we navigate texts. These ‘hypertexts’ form the basis of one possible future for literature, combining the old techniques of narrative creation with new technological methods of dissemination. This chapter examines the phenomenon of hypertexts, how we interact with them and how they affect us as both readers and writers. It investigates the possibility of alternative routes through, and perspectives on, a story. The hypertext referred to in this chapter, The Multiple Perspectives of Jekyll and Hyde , is available online at www.jekyllandhyde-multipleperspectives. co.uk. Introduction As a lifelong student of creative writing, choosing a topic for my PhD was naturally a difficult thing to do. With the whole range of the written word open to me, where could I start and how could I ensure I would choose something of a sufficiently academic level? After much thought and consultation with tutors, I decided to combine a number of my interests by rewriting a classic gothic story as a computer-driven web of texts known as a hypertext . In doing this I would be obliged to examine not just the process of writing, but also that of rewriting. I would need to combine this with a study of hypertext and the interaction with this new medium of both writer and reader. A lot of work had already been done on the theory and practice of hypertext, and more still on the processes of both writing and rewriting, but there had been little investigation of the crossover between these two fields.