Hypertext Writing

The “Delta Thrives” Hypertext

Just by looking at the story “Delta Thrives”, before reading a word, I could tell it was very different. This hypertext interface is formatted similar to a comic strip. It was made up of one really long strip with a variety of photos, each describing what was happening. There was text that was put in different areas throughout the images to describe who was speaking or thinking at the time. Different fonts and sizes were used to describe emotion throughout the story. Although, this hypertext story was very weird, I have to say that I really liked how it was set up.
I especially like how the interface was set up because it wasn’t like anything I have ever seen before, it was unique. This made the entire thing more interesting to read because it provided the reader with text as well as images. However, unlike most stories, the text worked with the images to tell the story, rather then separately. The images were the primary thing that was telling the story, and the text was working with the images to enhance and clarify what was going on in the story. In most stories, even in children’s books where images are a large part of the story, the text is the primary thing that is telling the story and the images are simply there to clarify. In “Delta Thrives”, it was the other way around. Perhaps that was why I liked it so much.
Have you ever heard someone say, “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Well that is exactly the base of how this hypertext story works. It provides the reader with images and allows the images to speak to the reader, and then it adds text to clarify exactly what is meant in the story. The text itself isn’t being used as an image as much as it is a part of the actual image. They could not work alone. The story would be impossible to follow if either the text or the images were missing.
In this particular story, it’s not only the set up of the interface that catches the reader’s attention, but the story itself. The story takes place in the future. It never says the time period that the story takes place. However, it is made obvious that it is taking place in a futuristic setting through the photos and events that happen throughout the story. The story starts off by saying that cats can fly airplanes. If that was all that it said then perhaps one might conclude that it simply takes place in a world where cats are just as smart as humans. However, the images proved to us that this world was nothing like the life we are used to. It is made up of giant spheres that exist 7,000 meters above the sea and are all connected by giant tubes that would take you from one sphere to the other, which I can only assume are like cities.
Of course, the most obvious part of this particular story is the fact that the one girl and the main character in the story, is naked the entire time. No doubt this is one very shocking additive that keeps one reading on for answers. Is this woman just naked for the fun of it, or is it for a reason? Is that how everyone in that world lives, without clothes? However the only answer that we get to these questions is the fact that she’s very sexual. Just about half the things she speaks of are her orgasms. However, that is only one of the reasons why I find this story to be very weird.
In the story, the girl sees a whale die and feels an emotional attachment and ends up taking a ride with the whale to “find out where dead whales go”. But that’s not even the weirdest part, when she was on this swim with the dead whale, she heard music and realized that “in the world of the living, a new blue whale was about to be conceived”. Then, she was swimming with the rest of all the whale sperm toward the whale egg, and she thought “what would happen to me if I went into the egg? Would I be reincarnated as a blue whale?” That is probably what I thought was the weirdest part. It takes a really big imagination, and honestly a very scary mind, to think up something like that.
But other then the fact that I think the author is pretty weird, I have to admit that the way she set it up was very cool. It’s written like a blog entry, like she is talking directly to me. But it’s almost as though she is speaking through the pictures. Some parts of it seem slightly poetic to me though. Like when she said, “Though not a word I heard could I relate, the story was quite clear”. This line seems like it belongs in a poem to me. But the set up isn’t like a poem at all. This hypertext is set up like a long strip of images in the form of a story. It can’t really be read out of order, unless you chose to read one part before the other. Overall, I think this is good writing because it has a very unique and interesting arrangement and it catches the reader’s attention. Granted, the author has some very weird ways of getting attention, but the important part is that it works.