Storyspace was the first software program specifically developed for creating, editing, and reading hypertext fiction. It was developed in the 1980s by Jay David Bolter and Michael Joyce, who presented it to the first international meeting on Hypertext at Chapel Hill in October 1987 ^[1][2] . It was developed to support hypertext fiction in particular, although it can also be used for organizing and writing fiction and non-fiction intended for print. Storyspace is sold by the software company Eastgate Systems, and is available both for Windows and Mac.

[edit] Artistic and educational use

Several early classics of hypertext literature were created using Storyspace, such as Afternoon, a story by Michael Joyce, Victory Garden by Stuart Moulthrop and Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson.

Storyspace has also been used extensively in tertiary and secondary education for teaching general writing skills and critical thinking ^[3][4] and for teaching creative writing in particular^[5], and was especially popular in the early years of the web when hypertext linking was less fluid and web pages had to be hand-coded in HTML. Proponents argue that Storyspace's visual maps of how hypertext nodes or lexia are connected allow students to focus on writing in hypertext rather than on technical issues, and that linking and/or visually juxtaposing ideas allows students to develop a visual logic^[6].

[edit] See also

• Official Storyspace web site

[edit] References

1. ^ Bolter, J. David and Michael Joyce (1987). "Hypertext and Creative Writing", Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 1987, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States, pages 41-50.
2. ^ Hawisher, Gail E., Paul LeBlanc, Charles Moran, and Cynthia L. Selfe (1996). Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994: A History Ablex Publishing Corporation, Norwood NJ, p. 213
3. ^ Russell, G (1998). "Elements and Implications of a Hypertext Pedagogy" Computers and Education, 31(2), pages 185-193.
4. ^ Taylor, Pamela G. and B. Stephen Carpenter, II (2002). "Inventively Linking: Teaching and Learning with Computer Hypertext" Art Education, 55(4), pp. 6-12.
5. ^ Murray, Janet H (1997). "The Pedagogy of Cyberfiction: Teaching a Course on Reading and Writing Interactive Narrative", in Barrett, Edward and Marie Redmond (eds.) Contextual Media: Multimedia and Interpretation, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
6. ^ Tan, Kenneth Paul A.S.-S. (2002) "Storyspace: Using Hypertext in the Classroom" The Technology Source, July/August.