Hyperfiction and the Web: an unlikely pair?

• Quality and the Web
  One of the great virtues of the Web is that anyone can publish anything they want, with little cost involved. Unfortunately, this often means that the quality is not up to the same standards a print publisher would demand. Of course, the monolithic book publishing process often screens out the innovative new fiction along with the merely shoddy. But, in general, the lack of regulation on the Web is bound to lead to variations in quality.
  As Shumate and Jay David Bolter have both said, we need a period of trial and experimentation before we reach a level of competence. The writers of the future must stand on the backs of those who came before. But, we can't expect good Web hyperfiction to appear overnight. We should realize that both hyperfiction and the Web are in their infancy. We should patiently wait for them to mature. As George Landow said in an interview, "Bad systems and bad writing disorient, but bad writing always has. People have to learn how to write in the medium, in the same way people have to learn how to write a book or to give presentations, public speeches, etc."
  
• R-E-S-P-E-C-T
  Hyperfiction is not taken seriously. I think this is a problem that will fade as the Web becomes the standard and print newspapers, magazines, etc., dwindle, but today, hyperfiction, especially hyperfiction on the Web, is not highly respected. Part of this, of course, is related to the aforementioned quality problems.
  It is my belief that the medium does not preclude the creation of great works of fiction (as long as we are willing to redefine "great," "work" and "fiction"!). The problem is one of the medium being respectable enough to get the best fiction and other writers on board. As Janet Murray said in an on-line interview, "I hope that people will increasingly approach digital narrative art with all the energy and seriousness of aspiration as we would any other storytelling form."
• The Bottom Line
  This may seem obvious, but it needs to be said: talented writers often do not showcase their hyperfiction on the Web because they can't pay off the mortgage that way. As much as writers love an audience, they love a paying audience even more. The Web has yet to become a money-making venture, although I suspect it eventually will. Until then, the search for financial returns will continue. Eastgate Publishing, a company that sells hyperfiction on disk or CD-ROM, calls themselves the home of "serious" hypertext. This caters to both the need for respect (hyperfiction as a serious art form) and for financial independence (hyperfiction as an art form people are willing to pay to read).
• Technological Glitches
  This aspect of the problem is not as well known or as well publicized. Many writers and theorists struggle with the fact that, as a method of presenting hypertext and hyperfiction, the Web is quite simplistic. Many other hypertext programs, such as Storyspace offer many things to the hypertext author that the Web cannot. In particular, software like Storyspace offers a variety of link types and also visual representations (maps, charts, etc.) of the hypertext and its links. Robert Coover said in the February 1998 Feed, "Hyperfiction seems to demand [a] variety of links and tends to be much diminished when it moves from the proprietary software out onto the Net. ...Structureless fiction is as unreadable as structureless thought, and the present primitive linking systems [of the Web] tend to reduce most attempts at fiction to commonplace books, or merely additive texts, readable in any order."
  While Landow laments the Web's abilities, he acknowledges that the Web has made hypertext and hyperfiction much more popular and accessible. He comments on the topic, saying, "I think [the Web] is a form of Hypertext, but compared to things like Intermedia, Storyspace, Microcosm, or the German SEPIA (Structured Elicitation and Processing of Ideas for Authoring), or Hyper-G in Austria, it really is a flat version. On the other hand, the World Wide Web is to networked Hypertext what HyperCard was to stand-alone Hypertext. Despite the fact that it is so flat and limited, it is probably going to have much more influence than better systems because most people perceive it as free, and it is very easy to get into in the beginning."
• The Postmodernist Anchor
  The Web is a tool of the populace. Popularity is measured in number of "hits" per day. The writer of serious (or truly hypertextual) hyperfiction, is at a disadvantage. Most critically-acclaimed hyperfiction (non-Web, that is), is distinctly postmodern/post-structuralist. The average reader is no more likely to enjoy post-structuralist hyperfiction than post-structuralist print fiction. While his books are critically acclaimed and revered by those in academic circles, few people take the works of Thomas Pynchon as vacation reading.
  The post-structuralist/anti-foundationalist notion of authority requires active participation by the reader (i.e., the reader creates the text). This often manifests itself in hyperfiction as fragmentation-lots of ideas floating around. It is up to the reader to make the connection. We should realize that this is not what interests the average reader. In an article called "Going Into the Woods,", Christine Boese discusses this, saying, "If hyperfiction authors continue to adopt the postmodern stance of dead authors and responsive readers, yet create texts so dense as to create a prohibitive barrier against ANY reader response, the medium itself could simple lose momentum and become an anachronism, a curiosity of the late '90's technological enthusiasm. Some may argue that this has already happened."
  It's not too late for hyperfiction to be reborn as a art form for the general public, but I am afraid that there might be significant resistance from the anti-establishment "establishment."