"The digital frontier is a dynamic new space for storytelling but its potential has yet to be realized"(Paul). This couldn't be more true. Although there are many digital stories like The heist, hypertext as far as storytelling is concerned is very underrated and overlooked. Hypertext has many advantages over regular text in terms of action, relationships, both within the material and between the material and sources, context, and communication.

    The telling of a story boils down to two main differences, constraints of a linear structure and availability of supplemental material. Regular storytelling can include supplemental text either appended to the end of the text or preceding it and then subsequently referring to it with footnotes throughout the text but hypertext streamlines this process. Not  only is it easier to reference the material but it requires less space and you can do so without losing your place in the original story. For example if you are reading a Lord of the rings book and are baffled as to what this Uruk-hai creature he is talking about is, you'd have to turn to the back and possibly lose your place in the progress. This is assuming you have an edition that has the appendicies or whatever Tolkien or his publishers choose to call it in the work. In comparison, in a hypertext format, Tolkien could have just made Uruk-hai a link which would open up in a new window and keep on going with the text.

    The main advantage, however, and the most unexplored is the freedom from the linear structure. All the differences between hypertext and regular text lead to some degree of non-linear structure. These can range from children's animated story books with interactive elements on each page which are minor diversions but do not effect the overall storyline to grand constructs such as "Maze Stories" and variants that let the user navigate through the story (Hippolyte) . This escape from the linear structure can lead to some interesting things such as being able to follow characters through the story and switch characters to see the event from another viewpoint. The ability to easily link these various viewpoints allow the author to display more detail about an event without losing focus on the characters in the process. In fact, such a method would most likely lead to much more character development since alot would be revealed by their differences in perception.

    Although the non-linear structure has its advantages it also has its disadvantages. When implementing this structure you may wish to give the reader control over the action but if you give them too much control you lose the ability to express something with the story, which is the main reason for righting it in the first place. According to Hippolyte, one good way to deal with many of the problems is by limiting user actions and possible outcomes. A good example of this is Scott McCloud's "Choose your own Carl" where you can take various paths at forks but there are many convergence points.

    Also, if one isn't careful, a hypertext story can lack a sense of direction. This really puts off the reader as they will put the story away for one less confusing, even if they liked the content. This may be one reason why hypertext hasn't caught on as well as it could have. Even in the digital age things evolve at their own pace and people are not ready for the complete abandonment of direction. That may not even be a good idea at all. Without direction your work seems to have no purpose and if people view a work as  having no purpose for being then they will feel they have no purpose for viewing.