Frames!

[zocheret]

I keep getting stuck in frames when I try to read "Waves of Girls". Once I hit 4 layers of frames on frames, that was it, I couldn't do it anymore. I don't know if it's my browser or I have really bad luck when it comes to clicking on links, but it gets to the point where it's so garbled and smushed together that nothing at all makes sense

Comments

[martin_doc]

It really sounds like your browser is the problem as opposed to the hypertext being "pointless." Since you have a Mac, have you tried Safari instead?

MKF

[zocheret]

Yes, I tried Safari and two versions of Firefox, both the beta and the general release. I keep getting stuck. Something loops around in the story about Vanessa and I end up with frames on frames.

I understand theoretically the idea of hypertext being able to follow human thought as a means of conveying an idea, but in practice, it seems unbearably recursive and impractical. When people write about hypertext fiction, it seems interesting and functional and elegant. When I'm trying to read it, I'm frustrated by the inaccessibility of the text. There's always something else out of reach and I can never, ever get to it. If last week's hypertext was supposed to be about fluid and drowning, "Waves of Girls" certainly feels like it, bombarded with information and images and sounds from all sides, everything looping back on one another.

[digital_liz]

If it makes you feel any better, I got three deep in frames as well using Firefox.

For me, it felt like the frames represented the layering of the narrative, that everything collapsed into one another and all the smaller nodes became part of one big overarching story--like the anemone structure Ryan was discussing.

Eventually, I think I clicked on one of the links in frame three and it collapsed back down again. So it was possible to navigate out of the crazy frames, it just took a lot of reading and clicking.

[jamiebussey86]

I got to three frames, but didn't notice right away. I had got so caught up in clicking links and the story. Eventually the other frame disappeared though.