Steve Ersinghaus

I’m back into Dreamweaver as my code editor. But I still like hand-coding for some reason, though Dw just makes it easier to figure out why I screwed it up.
We also have somewhat of a bead on a Flash or SVG generated Storyspace file rendering machine. This will take some time though and it will [...]

This imagery is real core stuff. The text box’s contexts are compressed and vivid.

Find the local dealer and walk into the section of choice and you’ll possibly be overwhelmed, unless you’re Charles and Charles has a thing for dusty stacks, the deep and penetrating pains from bumping into the corners of close-drawn furniture, and he enjoys following young men and women. He backs into the shadows and watches [...]

Stories haunt the writer.
The rhythm of the language takes over, too, such that the the normal way of observing and expressing an object takes the color of that speed and temperament. Being inside the world is a way to express this metaphorically. Consider writing a large space. “writing a large space” isn’t writing a [...]

The following screen shots illustrate a creative problem in hypertext having to do with the content of writing spaces, closure, and links. I’ve highlighted the second link in the space called Burdens. The link in question is “like you.” In the context of the writing space, “like you” implies a lot: association, metaphor, difference, [...]

Mark Bernstein’s comment in a previous post reminds me of something I forgot to come back to. One of the reasons I’m tracking certain aspects of the Brimmer hypertext is to explore questions of aesthetics in the art form of hypertext fiction. Certain editing and creative problems arise in the crafting of hypertext that [...]

As I’d written about earlier, the imagery must be compressed.
So, let’s say you were weighted down under a stone on the floor of a sea. Could happen.
He opened his eyes to a dead fire. He blew coughs out of his lungs. He rose to his feet with the grit of seasalt [...]

For Brimmer, who has the gift of long life, time is an interesting phenomenon. In this section of the story, things are about to move in a different direction:
Brimmer never figured that a miscalculation in arch width would lead to the incineration of Max Splunt. He hadn’t suspected Max for a man likely to [...]

In a note to this post on hypertext and effects Juan writes:
It can be argued that most pieces of electronic literature could be reproduced in paper, thus the question about essential innovation seems valid. What cannot be reproduced on paper is the processing capacity of a computer. Storyspace offers some basic processing. Literatronic offers a [...]

A force driving Brimmer and Death is an aesthetic that has to do with Storyspace writing spaces. I call this an aesthetic because the force has to do with effects to the reader. I’ll get into more detail in a second.
But are Storyspace writing spaces all that different from any other space in [...]

Brimmer and Death is growing close to completion. I’ve been through the narrative several times and in doing so have found several elements that continue to develop from connections aided by the editing medium, Storyspace.
Basically, Brimmer and Death is framed by common images and common places, but the premise of the story, fixed in [...]

Susan Gibb has a bit up on Brimmer and Death that covers stuff written into a space called “Rooms.”
Here’s the revision:
Hand in hand, they walked through rooms, some cluttered with books and furniture, others punched through with holes that opened onto instances of existence.
“I opened these for you,” she said. “I’m about scope. I [...]

Brimmer and Death is being edited via its paths or two major narratives. I read and write following one narrative path, finish it, then go back and read/rewrite through the next, then I do it all over again (and over again). This means that at some point the editing pen is going to [...]

Brimmer and Death began with these few sentences.
On the first evening of a two-day hike through the desert, Brimmer met Death seated on a flat-topped stone. On her head she wore a black bandanna. Silver rivets studded her belt, and she cooled herself with a paper fan imprinted with the shape of the universe.
This little [...]

No, these aren’t weird pictures of galaxies, they’re Storyspace maps of Brimmer and Death at separate stages of development.
The first is an older rendering of the map. The colored hub at the center demonstrates how the story developed and grew from an early conception of several paths. Basically, the reader would click on [...]