= [Overview]
Some authors have enjoyed creating websites, posting their
works and communicating with readers by email. Other authors
have begun searching how using hyperlinks could expand their
writing towards new directions, while linking it to images and
sound. Jean-Paul switched from being a print author to being an
hypermedia author, while enjoying the freedom given by online
(self-)publishing: "The internet allows me to do without
intermediaries such as record companies, publishers and
distributors. Most of all, it allows me to crystallize what I
have in my head: the print medium only allows me to partly do
that. (...) Surfing the web is like radiating in all directions
(I am interested in something and I click on all the links on a
home page) or like jumping around (from one click to another,
as the links appear). You can do this in the written media, of
course. But the difference is striking. So the internet changed
how I write. You don't write the same way for a website as you
do for a script or a play."
= The internet as a research tool
Murray Suid is a writer of educational books and material
living in Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley. He has
also written books for kids, multimedia scripts and
screenplays. How did using the internet change his professional
life? He wrote in September 1998: "The internet has become my
major research tool, largely - but not entirely - replacing the
traditional library and even replacing person-to-person
research. Now, instead of phoning people or interviewing them
face to face, I do it via email. Because of speed, it has also
enabled me to collaborate with people at a distance,
particularly on screenplays. (I've worked with two producers in
Germany.) Also, digital correspondence is so easy to store and
organize, I find that I have easy access to information
exchanged this way. Thus, emailing facilitates keeping track of
ideas and materials. The internet has increased my
correspondence dramatically. Like most people, I find that
email works better than snail mail. My geographic range of
correspondents has also increased - extending mainly to Europe.
In the old days, I hardly ever did transatlantic penpalling. I
also find that emailing is so easy, I am able to find more time
to assist other writers with their work - a kind of a virtual
writing group. This isn't merely altruistic. I gain a lot when
I give feedback. But before the internet, doing so was more of
an effort."
Murray was among the first authors to add a website to his
books - an opportunity that many would soon adopt: "If a book
can be web-extended (living partly in cyberspace), then an
author can easily update and correct it, whereas otherwise the
author would have to wait a long time for the next edition, if
indeed a next edition ever came out. (...) I do not know if I
will publish books on the web - as opposed to publishing paper
books. Probably that will happen when books become multimedia.
(I currently am helping develop multimedia learning materials,
and it is a form of teaching that I like a lot - blending text,
movies, audio, graphics, and - when possible - interactivity)."
He added in August 1999: "In addition to 'web-extending' books,
we are now web-extending our multimedia (CD-ROM) products - to
update and enrich them."
In October 2000, "our company - EDVantage Software - has become
an internet company instead of a multimedia (CD-ROM) company.
We deliver educational material online to students and
teachers."
= The internet as a novel "character"
Alain Bron lives in Paris, France. He is a consultant in
information systems and a writer. The internet is one of the
"characters" of his second novel, "Sanguine sur toile"
(Sanguine on the web), available in print from Editions du
Choucas in 1999, and in PDF format from Editions 00h00 in 2000.
Alain wrote in November 1999: "In French, 'toile' means the web
as well as the canvas of a painting, and 'sanguine' is the red
chalk of a drawing as well as one of the adjectives derived
from blood ('sang' in French). But would a love of colors
justify a murder? 'Sanguine sur toile' is the strange story of
an internet surfer caught up in an upheaval inside his own
computer, which is being remotely operated by a very mysterious
person whose only aim is revenge. I wanted to take the reader
into the worlds of painting and enterprise, which intermingle,
escaping and meeting up again in the dazzle of software. The
reader is invited to try to untangle for himself the threads
twisted by passion alone. To penetrate the mystery, he will
have to answer many questions. Even with the world at his
fingertips, isn't the internet surfer the loneliest person in
the world? In view of the competition, what is the greatest
degree of violence possible in an enterprise these days? Does
painting tend to reflect the world or does it create another
one? I also wanted to show that images are not that peaceful.
You can use them to take action, even to kill."
What part does the internet play in his novel? "The internet is
a character in itself. Instead of being described in its
technical complexity, it is depicted as a character that can be
either threatening, kind or amusing. Remember the computer
screen has a dual role - displaying as well as concealing. This
ambivalence is the theme throughout. In such a game, the big
winner is of course the one who knows how to free himself from
the machine's grip and put humanism and intelligence before
everything else."
= The web and its hyperlinks
Like many artists, Jean-Paul began searching how hyperlinks
could expand his writing towards new directions. He switched
from being a print author to being an hypermedia author, and
created "Cotres furtifs" (Furtive Cutters) as a website
"telling stories in 3D". He enjoyed the freedom given by online
(self-)publishing, and wrote in August 1999: "The internet
allows me to do without intermediaries, such as record
companies, publishers and distributors. Most of all, it allows
me to crystallize what I have in my head: the print medium
(desktop publishing, in fact) only allows me to partly do
that."
He also insisted on the growing interaction between digital
literature and technology. "The future of cyber-literature,
techno-literature, digital literature or whatever you want to
call it, is set by the technology itself. It is now impossible
for an author to handle all by himself the words and their
movement and sound. A decade ago, you could know well each of
Director, Photoshop or Cubase (to cite just the better known
software), using the first version of each. That is not
possible any more. Now we have to know how to delegate, find
more solid financial partners than Gallimard, and look in the
direction of Hachette-Matra, Warner, the Pentagon and
Hollywood. At best, the status of multimedia director (?) will
be the one of video director, film director, manager of the
product. He is the one who receives the golden palms at Cannes,
but who would never have been able to earn them just on his
own. As twin sister (not a clone) of the cinematograph, cyber-
literature (video + the link) will be an industry, with a few
isolated craftsmen on the outer edge (and therefore with below-
zero copyright)."
Jean-Paul added in June 2004: "Surfing the web is like
radiating in all directions (I am interested in something and I
click on all the links on a home page) or like jumping around
(from one click to another, as the links appear). You can do
this in the written media, of course. But the difference is
striking. So the internet changed how I write. You don't write
the same way for a website as you do for a script or a play.
(...)
In fact, it is not the internet which changed how I write, it
is the first Mac that I discovered through the self-learning of
HyperCard. I still remember how astonished I was during the
month when I was learning about buttons, links, surfing by
analogies, objects or images. The idea that a simple click on
one area of the screen allowed me to open a range of piles of
cards, and each card could offer new buttons and each button
opened on to a new range, etc. In brief, the learning of
everything on the web that today seems really banal, for me it
was a revelation (it seems Steve Jobs and his team had the same
shock when they discovered the ancestor of the Mac in the
laboratories of Rank Xerox). Since then I write directly on the
screen: I use the print medium only occasionally, to fix up a
text, or to give somebody who is allergic to the screen a kind
of photograph, something instantaneous, something approximate.
It is only an approximation, because print forces us to have a
linear relationship: the text is developing page after page
(most of the time), whereas the technique of links allows
another relationship to the time and space of imagination. And,
for me, it is above all the opportunity to put into practice
this reading/writing 'cycle', whereas leafing through a book
gives only an idea - which is vague because the book is not
conceived for that."