interactive narratives

First, we must take a more specific look at the concept of 'interactive narration'. Narrative fiction in general can be described with a three-level model: 1) the Text describes how; 2) the narrator tells what; 3) the characters do/perceive (Tammi 1992). The notion of 'text' with regard to hypertext is problematic, as is demonstrated in numerous treatises. The main argument in (almost) all of them is that there are no fixed boundaries for hypertext.

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Using the distinction made by Russian formalists, the effects on the level of fabula (the story as a chronological chain of events) are caused by choices made on the level of sjuzet (the story as told).

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This randomness is denied by the instructions to Victory Garden, which claim that "links are complex and subtle, but never random." From the viewpoint of the hyperfiction author this is obviously true, but for the reader it is not as obvious. George Landow and Paul Delany have described the rhetorical devices of hypertexts, stating that each link should provide the reader with adequate information about the link, e.g., departure and arrival information (1993, 19). This of course cannot be applied as such to hyperfiction, but it has some relevance for it, too. For as long as the reader doesn't know the effects of his/her choices, the interaction seems random. Randomness naturally has its own role in aesthetics, (and can be used intentionally to some degree).

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One of the possible solutions to this problem is the use of visual navigating devices for the reader--which Landow sees as one of the most efficient devices for the intellectual mapping of hypertext (Landow 1994, 85; cf. Slatin 1994, 165). These navigating tools are my main focus here and the 'visual' in my title should be restricted to this meaning: visuals as aid to interface.

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Brenda Laurel has developed a theory of interfaces based on the model of theater in which she states that the aim for interface designs should be to create a representational context in which people can participate as agents, stripped of the 'metacontext' of the interface as a discrete concern (9). One of Laurel's theses is that using an interface should already establish a shift from the 'user as audience' to the 'user as actor on stage' (17). There is one small but significant part in the hyperfiction that establishes the user's (reader's) presence in the representational world: the cursor-arrow, with which he/she controls the hypertext.

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The cursor does not mark the reader's presence in that world. Because the textual-fictional world is the center of interest for hyperfiction authors as well as readers, it is understandable that hyperfiction interfaces are constructed to draw as little attention to themselves (to the metacontext as Laurel says) as possible. On the other hand, the more interactivity (or even proactivity) the hyperfiction aspires to, the greater the distance from the fictional world; in other words, high interactivity makes the 'willing suspension of disbelief' required in experiencing fiction more difficult. It is in this sense that I understand Michael Joyce's comment that one of the stories of hyperfiction is always the story of its own telling (Joyce 1996, 160). There are, though, ways to use interfaces so that the fictional illusion is not badly disturbed

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