Digital Literatures

Hypertext fiction

• characterized by linking structures (afternoon, a story by Michael Joyce; Patchwork Girl by Virginia
Shelley)

• earliest form of electronic literature

Network Fiction

• diversified forms of hypertext fiction, such as narratives that emerge from data repositories (Twelve
Blue by Michael Joyce)

• combines other media forms, like audio and video, in a networked structure (These Waves of Girls by
Caitlin Fisher)

• defined by David Ciccoricco as digital fiction that "makes use of hypertext technology in order to
create emergent and recombinatory narratives."

Interactive Fiction

• Has more game elements; varies in the amount of narrative components

• Inspired Nick Monfort to coin the term “interactor” to describe the combined reading/authoring role
of IF users

• Noted for innovative uses of convential literary devices (Savoir-Faire, by Emily Short, for example,
plays on the concept of literary metaphor, while All Roads, by Jon Ingold, encourages a self-referential
critique of the empowering nature of the hypertext environment.)

Locative Narratives

• The “next step” in the evolution of the hypertext narrative: from digitalized three-dimensional spaces
to actual ones

• A trendy variety of electronic literature, similar to email novels (popular in the 90s) and serial fictions
communicated though cell phone

• location-specific narratives that can be played as audio tapes or keyed to GPS technologies used by the
reader or listener (for example, The Missing Voice by Janet Cardiff is a “part urban guide, part fiction,
part film noir” audio tape that the user plays as he or she goes on a tour of London. Her Long Black Hair
takes listeners on a narrative journey through New York’s Central Park.)

"Codework"

Perl Poetry

• A natural language is hybridized with programming expressions; in its purest form, executable code

• Two addresses: human readers and machines

• “Broken code” pieces are more common; they contain literary devices associated with the print form,
such as puns, parallel structures, neologisms (check out to Perplexia by Talan Memmott)

Generative Art

• Uses an algorithm to create and re-create text and/or visual components

• Draws attention to the transformation of temporal and logical relationships between reader and writer
in digital space (Regime Change by Noah Wardrip-Fruin; On Lionel Kearns by Jim Andrews)

Flash poem

Still from a flash poem

• Another creative approach to literature that incorporates programming languages and functions

• Sequential screens that generally progress without interactivity (although poems that GO offers a fun
selection of interactive pieces. The Dreamlife of Letters by Brian Kim Stefans is a non-interactive Flash
poem.)