Fall 2005

This course aims to apply the abstract and unclear ideas we have about the process of creating fiction to the even more abstract and unclear idea of what it means to create narrative for the screen. We will read and study the notions of various authors who I consider precursors or coconspirators in the The Hypertext Fiction Debacle and apply them to our own work (designed perhaps in HTML, perhaps in Flash). We will read from the thin, overrated body of hypertext literature and attempt to make things that are better.

Requirements:

In addition to the Essential Daily Maneuver (making your own work and reading and responding to your peers) you will be required to complete the following:

-Do a short presentation on one of the assigned hypertextual texts, breaking the piece down and explaining how it works as a literary and hypermedia piece of art.

-Complete one short-short story designed for the cell phone or a PDA.

-Turn in one piece on the date you are scheduled for workshop. This piece should be complete technologically and text-wise. No turning in half-done projects that don’t quite work. They may not be working quite to your liking, but they should be close.

-Participate in daily conversation and respond with diligence to each piece turned in for workshop.

Grading:

This is a graduate creative writing workshop. That means that less than your full efforts at writing and at criticizing for the benefit of others is less than excellent and will not merit an A. On top of that, you must devote extensive time to learning the various technologies. It should prove quite intensive if you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing, which is: Write everyday. Read everyday. Learn how to do one thing with the software that you want to do everyday.

Schedule:

9/7

-Intros

-Discussion about The Art of Fiction and Hypermedia

-Read “The Fall of the Site of Marsha” - http://www.tank20.com/MARSHA/

-Read Rick Pryll’s “Lies” - http://users.rcn.com/rick.interport/lies/lies.html

-Read “Diary of a Garter Belt Feminist” - http://www.artcommotion.com/garterbelt/

-Discussion of Form and Content in Hypermedia

For next week:

-Read the George Saunders introduction to Huck Finn

-Read the Donald Barthelme essay “Not-Knowing”

-Read the introduction to and Eurudice’s “EHMH” and Steve Katz’s “Current Events” in After Yesterday’s Crash: The Avant-Pop Anthology

-Acquaint yourself with the emich web space which is yours by virtue of your being a student here. Follow the directions to upload your first website here: http://people.emich.edu/

9/14

-Discussion of previous week’s readings

-Assumptions of Hypermedia and A Poetics of the Link

-Introduction to Flash

For next week:

-Depending on your level, complete the lynda.com Beginning or Intermediate Flash MX 2004 tutorial CD-ROMS handed out in class.

-Bring to class your final projects from the Flash tutorials

-Read Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl.

-Poke around the site of hypermedia poet Jason Nelson. Read at least a couple of the pieces there to get a sense of what he does with Flash.

-Read Mark Amerika's "OK Texts"

-If there is something audal you are interested in working with (a clip, a song, a recorded baby laugh, elephant chortle, what have you) bring it in on either a Jumpdrive or CD.

9/21

Complete Flash Tutorials

For next week:

-Bring to class your final projects from the Flash tutorials

-If there is something audal you are interested in working with (a clip, a song, a recorded baby laugh, elephant chortle, what have you) bring it in on either a Jumpdrive or CD.

9/28

-Discuss The Order

-Discuss Patchwork Girl, structure and mapping

-Assign Presentations and Set workshop schedule

-Assign PDA Short-Short - A Short-Short designed for a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or cell phone. Short-short should be sized 150 X 150 pixels. It may be no bigger than 150K (I will be lenient on this; but don't make it graphics, sound, or video heavy) and should employ at least three of the techniques in either the Beginning or Intermediate Flash tutorials you did. You may have scrolling text, but your scrolling text box may take up a maximum of half the screen (75 pixels), and there must be at least one more additional element. (Click here for a very easy tutorial on creating scrolling text.)

-View Jason Nelson's work and discuss; Mark Amerika's OK Texts, more formally attentive hypertext

-Some Flash business: Do in-class the following Flash tutorials...

-Creating Simple Buttons

-Creating Simple Links

-Making sound happen with Flash

For next week:

-Bring to class your PDA Short-Short in Flash, ready to play.

-Those with presentations due, prepare them.

-Read Marcus essay handed out in class

-In After Yesterday's Crash read Ben Marcus's "False Water Society" and Curtis White's "Bonanza"

-Look at commercial websites: Diesel Dreams; Requiem For A Dream; The Grudge (click "enter the site"); The Squid and the Whale (click "enter site")

-If there is some video you are interested in working with (a spot of white noise, a Seinfeld clip, recordings of a flower in the hair of your beloved) bring it in on either a Jumpdrive or CD.

10/5

-Discuss Mark Amerika's "OK Texts"

-Discuss Marcus essay and stories from the anthology

-Discuss what we can learn from the commerical websites/how they are using hypermedia

-Workshop PDA Short-Shorts

-Presentations: _______Jesse_________________ and ___________Leigh_____________

-Questions about Simple button, simple link, and simple sound tutorials from last week

For next week:

-In After Yesterday's Crash read Tom Robbins's "Moonlight Whoopie Cushion Sonata" and Mark Leyner's "Oh, Brother"

-If you have not done so already, make 100% certain you have completed the sections in either the Beginning or Intermediate Flash discs on Sound and Video.

-Do the tutorial on preloaders at webwasp--every project in class must have a preloader!

-Bring your projects in progress to work on them in class.

10/12 - Linearity

-Discuss readings from After Yesterday's Crash.

-Working with Sound and Video (finally)

-Some tricks with Flash, custom cursors, drawing online in flash movies, etc.

-Presentations: _______Justin_________________ and __________Mike______________

For next week:

-In After Yesterday's Crash read Craig Baldwin's piece from Tribulation 99, Derek Pell's "Weird Romance", and David Blair's "Ella's Special Camera".

-Online read Scott McCloud's "The Carl Comics".

10/19 - Image & Text

-Discuss Image and Text Readings

-Presentations: _______Liane_________________ and __________Christine______________

For next week:

-Read Simon Norton's "Testimony: A Story Machine"

-Read John Barber's K. and newyork

-In After Yesterday's Crash read the selections by Steve Erickson, Susan Daitch, and William Gibson

10/26

-Discuss readings.

-In-class work on Hypermedia stories

For next week:

-Work on Hypermedia stories; bring in your project for "pin-up".

-Read Robert Coover's "The Babysitter"

-In After Yesterday's Crash read the selection from Don Delillo.

11/2

-"Pin-up" of stories in progress

-In-class work on Hypermedia stories

For next week:

-Prepare for workshop

11/9

Workshop:__________Mike___________________________________

For next week:

-TBA

11/16

Workshop:__________Justin___________________________________

For next week (11/30):

-TBA

11/23

NO CLASS – Thanksgiving

11/30

Workshop:__________Leigh___________________________________

For next week:

-TBA

12/7

Workshop:__________Liane___________________________________

For next week:

-TBA

12/14

Final workshop:______Jesse___________________________________