Stitch Bitch: You Won’t Get Where You Think You’re Going

–We’re not who we say we are
–You’re not where you think you are
–I’m not where you say I am
–You won’t get where you think you’re going
–It’s not what we wish it were
–It’s not what it says it is
–I’m not who you think I am
–We don’t say what we mean to say
–We are not who we wish we were
–It’s not all you think it is
–It’s not how they said it was

These are the phrases Shelley Jackson uses in an attempt to explain hypertext narrative as compared to more traditional story writing.

It reminded me of a silent weekend Zen retreat I went to a few years ago.  Before the silent part of the retreat began, the teacher held up a a piece of paper with a few words written on it.  She said she wanted us to ponder this the entire weekend.  The sign read:

What if things aren’t really the way you think they are?

It was a good way to start.  It’s a good way to live life, I think.

Jackson shows us that there’s more than one way to think about stories, and way more than one way to write them.  We’re used to linear writing; there’s a beginning and an end. Often, it’s organized, clear, follows a logical order, and succinctly proves all of it’s points. It’s neat and clean. It’s a little like the research paper that we’re all in the process of writing for our Audience Analysis class.

But it’s a little confining and stuffy, isn’t it? And who made up the rule that it has to be that way? Is there room for something completely different? Something a little messier, more expansive and flexible, contradictory, unstable, changeable, malleable?

Jackson points out that we’re always trying to nail things down, make everything fit neatly together. We’re not very comfortable with ambiguity. We’re want clarity, clear boundaries. We like to play it safe. But things in real life are rarely so neat and clean. And that’s the territory Jackson is most interested in. This messiness we fear is where our treasure is, she tells us.

Jackson carved out a different sort of writing style, one she finds much more freeing than traditional writing; it’s called hypertext. It doesn’t take the road well-traveled, it takes the “backwoods, alleys and the trusty woods” (as Bob Seger sang in Night Moves).

She writes:

“Hypertext doesn’t know where it’s going…a hypertext never seems quite finished, it isn’t clear where it ends, it’s fuzzy at the edges, you can’t figure out what matters and what doesn’t, what’s matter and what’s void, what’s the bone and what’s the flesh.”

and later:

“Normally when you read you can orient yourself by a few important facts and let the details fall where they may. The noun trumps the adjective, person trumps place, idea trumps example. In hypertext, you can’t find out what’s important so you have to pay attention to everything, which is exhausting like being in a foreign country, you are not native.”

In Patchwork Girl, an electronic, interactive story, Jackson invites the reader to experience this state for themselves.  The story, based loosely on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is divided into several sections: “A Graveyard”, “A Story”, “A Quilt”, “A Journal” and “Broken Accents”. The reader can click into the sections and the story will take a different form depending upon the reader (see video above). Author and reader collage words and imagery together.

I think you would probably need to actually experience a book like this before you could begin to really understand it (although the point probably isn’t to understand it, but rather to experience it).  I’m intrigued.