Hypertext

I really enjoyed looking through the various kinds of hypertext. I found it interesting that text could be manipulated using various areas of technology. Though I skimmed through most of the sources out of curiosity, I have to say that the two which I focused on were the fairytales and the blog of Bernice Bobs her Hair. While I did enjoy the fairy-tales, I did not enjoy that the amount of control which the reader could exert over the story was so limited. It seemed like it was trying to mimic the feel of choose-your-own-adventure books, but the choices it gave were very limited. I also did not enjoy the fact that there was no happy ending available for the character. While I (admittedly) did not read every word of the Bernice blog, I did enjoy the uniqueness of it. I liked the fact that it was set up in such a realistic fashion, with her friends added to the blog as if they were "following" her as she wrote.

Dark Art

In Dark Art, I enjoyed how the book actually gives us the physical evidence so that we can follow along with the detectives and attempt to figure out the mystery ourselves. From credit cards, to voicemails and blogs, the book is extremely interactive and tactile. My favorite mystery within the book was how he psychologically impaired his sight making himself temporarily blind. Within this book, the brain and mental health take a huge role. It is quite intriguing how everyones mental state contributes to the direction of the story.

House of Leaves

This book is very different from what we have read before. This does not have any pictures as the other books do. In stead of using photos, it uses different fonts of text to express different things. The first few pages, the sentenses are very short. There are a lot of periods and I liked it because it is easy to read! Haha~ Also, some pages are all notes, some pages only have few lines and some only have one sentense.
Over all, although is it very confusing, it is still a very cool book to end this class!

Personal Effects

Dark Art was very interesting book. It was the most exciting book because of all the clues ID cards, paintings, pictures, etc. The extra clues helped you stay interested and interactive in the book and not to drift off not wanting to read anymore. Being able to call the numbers or explore the websites made me feel i was actually in this book it took it to another level of being apart of the story. this book was probably my favorite story from Multi Media Literature Class it was interesting compared to other stories we've read.

Hypertexts

The hypertext all differed greatly but all included, of course, the links that made it almost a mystery of reading. The first hypertext I read was in your place which was interesting because it was set up almost like a script and pages and the reader was instantly with in the characters mind, which I did not immediately get, but it was very interesting once realization took place. I also adored the fairytale especially because this fairy tale was not milked down, ruined, the way Disney continuously does to fairytales. It did cause me a little announce because there was a lot moving after reading very little. Technology, I don’t think, is advanced enough for this kind of story because one must wait 5 minutes for the next webpage to load.

House Of Talking Leaves

I find this book very confusing and challenging but I really do appreciate the creativity with in the different fonts, text set ups, and dialects. The pieces of the story make each character more personalized and interesting but I this also is what causes my frustration with in the reading. There continue to be movements on how you read and what you read and even where you read and there are changes with in the house. The characters are also confused which may display the brilliance of the writer, exemplifying his ability to hold all these different stories with in his head while also keeping changing in colors of words, fonts, and vernaculars. It remains difficult for me to keep up but Mark Z. Danielewski made it.

House of Leaves

Attempting to read and fully understand the book House of Leaves was more of a challenge than I thought it would be. I got caught up in trying to analyze the way it was set up more than what was actually going on in the story. I'm getting stuck in the maze of pages about the maze in the house. I have a hard time following the narrative voice because he isn't the clearest voice. Overall I'm frustrated with trying to read this book because it's set up so much differently than other normal books. It's a very interesting way to examine the text but it's a little too complicated for me.

House of Leaves

During the course of reading this graphic novel, I can honestly say that I have never been so confused. This confusion comes from the highly portrayed multi media aspect within the text. As soon as you began reading your are greeted with two sets of fonts: one is depicted by Johnny in Courier New and the other is depicted by Zampano in Times New Roman. Both sets of fonts tell a different story relating to the same text/film called the "Navidson Record". Along with the different sets of fonts there are footnotes to follow and give certain close pertaining to the previous text. Aside from reading the actual text, the reader must also follow along with the end notes as sort of a encyclopedia of information. With this being said, my comprehension of what is actually taking place is very limited. However, from a multi media point of view, this book utilizes a great variety of playing with words, fonts, colors and different indentations to carryout a sequence of events.

House Of Leaves

House of Leaves is my favorite piece of multi-media literature we've looked at this semester. I think that the reason I find it so impressive is that as well as being written in a very creative fashion, it is also a well-written and interesting story. The story could stand on it's own and still be a good read, without all the different plays on text and footnotes. I feel that it has a stronger and more well-written plot than Personal Effects. The way that Mark Z. Danielewski plays with the text makes the story much more mysterious and eerie. I love the way he always puts "house" in blue letters, and how he switches fonts to give hints about the narrators' personalities. You can really get lost in the book because of the multi-media aspects, which makes it feel even more like a maze and parallels with the idea of the Navidson house's ever changing rooms and hallways.

What gets me through reading Personal Effects is not only the mystery aspect, but the narrator's voice. He is very relateble and has a voice that makes the craziness and morbidity of the book more tolerable. His perspective on things is close to what I think my perspective would be if I was in his situation. I think it's rare to find a narrator that I agree with and that I don't find annoying. This makes the book much more enjoyable. What I don't personally like

House of Leaves

The text change within the book fits the characters perfectly. Johnny's informal text and writing fit his personality beautifully. He is a very cut and dry person...he gets right to the point. Zampano's text is extremely formal and is much more difficult to understand. He makes you really think about his ideas and thoughts. His wording is extremely complicated at times and requires you to pick apart his words and ideas.

Another part of the book that I really enjoy is the way he lays out some of the pages. For example, when he puts one or two words on a page to make you flip through the pages faster to make you feel like you are running like the character, moving at a fast pace. It keeps the book interesting and even though the book itself is quite confusing, the odd slants and angled text keeps the reader intrigued.

We Tell Stories- Fairy Tales

I personally do not like hypertexts as a form of multimedia. I love the being able to interact in multimedia, for example the previous book we read Personal Effects was my favorite form of multimedia thus far. This is interesting because Personal Effects is a very interactive type of story. After thinking about why Personal Effects was so appealing to me and any form of Hyper text was not, I came up with the conclusion that in Personal Effects, there is one correct answer or "destination" that all the readers will end up at. Throughout the story the reader works to come closer and closer to the correct answer (the solving of a mystery). In a hyper text, there is not right or wrong answer. I did not like how you would choose the characters, animals and ultimately the final outcome of the story. I like when the story is set in stone and the reader has to try to solve the puzzle. I like when there is one correct answer.

Personal Effects

Personal Effects was my favorite book and form of multimedia we have used this year. To confess, I actually just finished the story during spring break (most of the time if I am behind on the reading I would not bother to finish, but this book kept my interest far after the class was finished reading it). The book was fun and interactive. I think Personal Effects was attractive to the readers because of the level of involvement that each reader possessed. Besides having over a dozen clues including, ID's, painting, pictures, ect. throughout the book more and more clues would continue to pop up. These clues were much more exciting for me because when I picked up on them, I felt excited. It was fun to have a class site where we all kept track of the clues because then other people picked up on clues I did not and after a while all of the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together. I was very disappointed by the end of the story, but that does not take away or degrade what a fun and different type of story Personal Effects was.

Fairy Tales

I enjoyed reading Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen because I liked how interactive it was. It forced you to make decisions based upon your own opinion and personality. I also liked how his choices were quite different and odd. He really made you think about which path you wanted to choose. It was a very interesting hypertext. I must say it did get a bit tedious and annoying at times but I feel like that is what he wanted us to feel. Overall, I thought it was a very interesting idea that really engaged the reader.

Hypertext

The hypertext were all very different. I enjoyed the fairytale hypertext i got to make it a different story everytime. I did'nt like how you had to read a little change a part and then read it more too. It got confusing and was difficult to read. The idea was interesting, but if it made you make all the choices at the beginning then read the whole outcome would be a better idea. I still enjoyed that hypertext though.

We Tell Stories- Fairy Tale

I read Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, and I really enjoyed being so involved with deciding the fates of the characters in the story. I liked the story lines in general, but I did not like that some of the details in the story were not matched to the options that I chose. The ending in particular was very anti-climactic for me, since I wanted there to be a happy ending in the story and although I chose that option, the ending still did not reflect my choices. Other than that, being a part of the plot line in the story affected how I interpreted the story.

We Tell Stories

The story "The 21 Stpes" is very interesting. This is my first read a story that is written in such a different way -- Google Maps. In the traditional texts, author usually WRITE down where the events happened. In this story, by clicking on the bulbs, you automatically know what happened and where it happened. If you want to know what is happening next, you need to click on the buttons to go forward.
Stories written in this way is very attractive. I would never get bored reading this type of hypertext.

We tell stories-Tales from the 1001 nights

It is so interesting that I can read this hypertext in a very different way. I really like the way that the hypertext let you choose the direction of the story yourself. The character is a president of a country with nuclear weapons, simmering insurgencies, and rapidly proliferating pop starlets on music television. It is raining, and the secretary Shaan Azad starts to tell a story. It is very meaningful that the story remains as a circle. Shaan Azad said the there are at least two ways to tell the tale, and one end of the story is the beginning of another story. They both telling a same tale; however, it takes more sense by using a circle. The hypertext makes the words alive, and achieves many things that a book cannot do. Such as let the story develop as you wish, which makes everything more vivid.

Fairy Tales

One of the short stories that I enjoyed reading was Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen. I thought it was interesting that you could plug in and decide what the names of several of the characters were going to be. Also, how they ask questions such as "What animal will be most helpful to you aganist the king and what are they like?" I liked that it kept you involved in the story, however it got a little confusing going from one link to the next. Overall, I really like reading the hypertexts!

We Tell Stories- Dracula

Hypertext allows a more visual way to comprehend a subject/body of text in a creative way.I thought the Dracula hypertext introduced a blog-like summary of the novel. The hypertext gave me a new way to figure out the basic plot of the text without previously reading the book. However, the most difficult part of understanding the series of blogs was the fact that its posted in chronological order by the last updated blog. Therefore, I could only read the most recent blogs and could not find the blogs that started the website. On the other hand,the website included various letters corresponding with the various characters, short videos, links to vampire weaponry and other articles dealing with the book.

We Tell Stories- Fairy Tale

I thought the structure of the fairytale hypertext was very interesting. I liked how you could choose the names of the characters, the animals in the story, and the final outcome of the story. I really liked the way the story was set up except for the fact that it was choppy because you kept having to stop and choose an option and then continue to read. Hypertext is an interesting addition to our multimedia class, but fits well because of the interactive aspect to the story like other stories/books we have read throughout the semester.

We Tell Stories- The (Former) General in His Labyrinth

This story was told through Hypertext. It was interesting because you got to choose your own path through the story. The story ended up resembling a maze, and I kept ending up where I started at the way beginning of the story. It was really frustrating that I couldn't get through the whole narrative because of the hypertext. However, I also read the fairy tale from We Tell Stories and I thought that it worked a lot better because you were always able to progress in the story no matter which link you chose. Hypertext is definitely an intriguing way to read a story because you can get much more involved and end up with different outcomes for each individual.

We Tell Stories - Your Place and Mine

This story was incredibly interesting to read. Each hyper link directed the reader to a new day which developed the plot line of the romance developing between the two characters, Terry and Laurence. I was fascinated by this story because of the format that it was in. In writing the thoughts of the characters next to one another it was incredibly easy to compare and contrast them. It was highly interesting in comparing the male train of thought to the female train of thought. It was also rather sad to observe Terry falling in love with Laurence while he is thinking about his ex girlfriend and all the while classifying Terry as a "bit of fun" from a casual experience. This draws an interesting parallel between men and women and their various mental stages throughout a relationship.

We tell Stories- Fariy Tales

This story is embedded with hyperlinks which allows the reader to choose the fate of the characters and story line. The story is about a king who acts harshly towards his peasant and her daughter. The Peasant owes him money which she does not have to give so he threatens to take her daughter. Her daughter's magical tears turned an ugly hen into a peacock and she is faced with a challenge of having to carry him up a mountain and singing to him. The peacock magically allowed the Peasant's daughter to sing beautifully. On her adventurous voyage she conflicted with goblins and wolves yet her voice seemed to send them all the sleep. She was confronted with a Goblin who wanted to know ewhere she got her beautfl voice, so she taught him a riddle. Finally reaching the gates in which she was set out to, she mets a Giant who challanges her to a fight in order to enter. She defeated the giant by steping on his foot and entered the gates. She sang for the Starmaker and was asked to stay at the palace forever. She was destined to become very rich but never see her parents ever again. The Starmarker reassured her that they would be safe but that the girl would never be able to see them again. She agreed to the Starmaker's offer and lived with him for the rest of her life. - This story has multimedia aspects because it is embedded with online resourses which allows the reader to become fully engaged in what they're reading.