In this talk, Heidi Colthup looks at the history of hyperfiction and hypertext: Back in the 1990s there was talk of the end of the book now that we had computer screens. Some writers of experimental fiction started producing CDRoms of hypertext stories, some kept on using traditional hard copy books with surprising results, and others went off and wrote video games. Now we have games which we can read and hard copy books we can play so where does that leave hypertext fiction?

1. Hyperfiction: Where did it all go wrong?
How to tell stories without words
Heidi Colthup
@heidi_colthup
www.little-and-loud.com

3. Some definitions
• Hypertext - Text which does not form a single sequence and
which may be read in various orders; spec. text and graphics
(usu. in machine-readable form) which are interconnected in
such a way that a reader of the material (as displayed at a
computer terminal, etc.) can discontinue reading one document
at certain points in order to consult other related matter. (OED)
• Hyperfiction - or Cyberfiction, or digital literature, or
electronic literature, or digital fiction….

4. From
eliterature.org
which is based at
MIT and headed
up by Nick
Montfort

6. The Evolution of Ergodic Literature

7. ‘Castle Colditz’ Felix Software (1984)

8. ‘Afternoon – a story’ Michael Joyce (1992)

9. ‘Patchwork Girl’ Shelley Jackson (1995)

10. ‘Oldton’ Tim Wright (2004)

11. ‘Nightingale's Playground’ Andy Campbell
(2011)

12. The problems with Ergodic Literature, or
where Hyperfiction went wrong

13. The technology simply wasn’t good enough
to match our expectations.

14. ‘the early hypertextualists just weren’t good enough writers to
carry off such a difficult form.’ Lafarge (2011) http://
www.salon.com/2011/10/04/return_of_hypertext/

15. The reader’s
experience is
frustrating;
when are you
finished?

16. Plot?

17. Written by academics, for academics

18. The way
forward…
perhaps

21. Alice for the iPad

23. ‘Zombies, run!’ Naomi Alderman 2012

24. So what about games you can
read?
Imagine an image of a game controller (probably
a PS4 controller because they’re cool right now)
being used as a bookmark in a really worthy book
- War and Peace, or Bleak House, or Pride and
Prejudice.
And now imagine that I asked the
internet….
24

25. @socialtechn
o
25

26. @dannyuk
http://dannyuk.com/
26

27. Pauly Pops
27

28. Dr Kate Devlin
@drkatedevlin
28

29. @drkatedevlin (again…)
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30. 30

31. 31

32. 32

33. 33

34. 34

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