Category: story

What does it mean to be nonlinear? At face value, it means not denoting, involving, or arranged in a straight line. The mathematical interpretation of that is that the output of a function is not directly proportional to the input. Mathematicians,  and physicists, and engineers often take that definition further and talk of systems of equations consisting of a set of simultaneous equations in which the unknowns (or the unknown functions in the case of differential equations) appear as variables of a polynomial of degree higher than one. Whew! (Hang in there, all my non-mathematical friends. It’s all downhill from here.)

In digital film editing it means having all the various scenes available for editing in a nondestructive way. This was a revolutionary change in the way that film and audio were edited. Prior to the existence of nonlinear editing software, the original content (or copies of it) had to be cut into pieces and reassembled by splicing them together. This was both time consuming and tedious, requiring careful cataloging of shots (or takes in the case of audio editing) and patient assembly of the pieces into a coherent finished product.

But what does it mean when we are talking about prose? Nonlinear fiction, as I envision it anyway, is a story that is broken up into very small pieces that the reader can then explore by clicking on links. It has some of the feel of the old create your own story books where you were given the choice of going to page 26 if you want to pick up the rock or page 100 if you turn and run away. Only it’s slightly different. There is only one story. You don’t choose on of two actions. Instead you choose what you want to read about next.

It blurs the distinction between beginning, middle, and end. It may not even be particularly satisfying for the reader to read. I suspect that depends more on the skill of the author than it does on the nonlinear mechanism itself.

I have never read a story composed in this fashion. I am attracted to the idea of trying to write one. I may have to figure out the details of how to deliver the story to a reader. I might be able to adapt an existing framework like TiddlyWiki upon which to build the story.

There is a game that was written for the Macintosh called A Fool’s Errand that has a number of the qualities that I am striving for here. Also, Myst and Riven were stories that were similar in concept to what I have in mind. Those stories had a similar structure but not necessarily similar content to what I propose to write.

Let me know what you think of the idea.

Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the people you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

I am in the midst of a crowd of middle school kids. They are hunting Pokemon. I am to0 busy trying not to run into any of them to do anything with a phone. I just want to make it to the cafe two doors down. I make it to the front door and the kids continue on their quest.

I order a large cup of black coffee and a Danish. The cafe smells wonderful. The predominant smell is of course coffee. There is an undertone of pastries. Each confection adding its note to the aromatic symphony. I close my eyes to better appreciate it. The barista says, “Excuse me sir, your coffee.” I take the cup and find a seat near the front window.

I open the cover on my iPad. It has a keyboard case and I set it up so that I can write on it. I stare out the window. The kids have crossed the street to continue their hunt in the park there. A young mother sits on a bench and rocks her baby in a stroller.

I hear thunder in the distance. I don’t see any dark clouds anywhere. I doubt that we will see much rain today but we’ve got a weather eye out. If it rains today, we’ll have every resource at our disposal.

I sip coffee and type an opening sentence three times and erase it each time. Each time I think It will be good enough and each time it falls short. I remember what needs to be done.

Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

It was spooky the way that Randy always showed up just as Beth was ready to leave for school. The first couple of times that it happened I didn’t take note. But on the fourth or fifth day in a row I asked Beth, “Does Randy call you or something to find out when you’re going to be ready?”

“That is a silly thing to ask,” she said. “Of course he doesn’t. He just has this knack for knowing things like that. You wouldn’t understand.”

That meant of course that she didn’t want to take the time to try to explain it to me. So, I kept investigating. I discovered that everyone had these knacks in Beth’s school. Everyone’s knack was different but they all had one. Some people had multiple knacks. But no one over twenty seemed to have them. People who had them when they turned twenty kept them but no one acquired a knack after they turned twenty.

“What is your knack?” I asked Beth.

She blushed and said, “I couldn’t possibly tell you.”

That left me wondering for a minute. “Why not?” I asked her.

“You don’t have the context to understand,” she said. “And, no, I can’t help you there. I have been putting it together all my life and there’s just no way to explain it.”

I started to speak but she put her finger on my lips. “Weren’t there things that you couldn’t explain to your parents? Even if you had tried to explain them they didn’t know how things worked in your world,” she looked at me intently. She really wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I mean, what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how because you have similar experiences, shared experiences, you can communicate things with small fragments of sentences, words with layers of context wrapped around them. Knowing looks. Gestures. Don’t you have those things with your friends?” she said.

“I … I guess I may have felt that way with one or two of my friends at one time or another.”

“Well, we all feel that way most of the time. It comes from concentrating our text messages so that we don’t have to spend so much time typing them. Over time the context grows and the length of the actual communication shrinks. We have our own language in addition to the one that we speak with the rest of the world.”

“I have suspected as much for some time,” I said. “How do I find out more about these knacks?”

“I expect you will just have to find someone who is willing to talk about it with you. As for me right now, I’m done. Maybe I’ll feel like talking more tomorrow. Again, maybe I won’t.”

I nodded. “Have a good day at school.” I noticed the door opening behind her as Randy stuck his head in.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“I always am, aren’t I?” she replied.

Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the people you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

The little dog sat on my knee with her chin on my hand. She was a patient little puppy. She liked to watch as I pressed the keys on the keyboard. She had no idea why I was doing it but it was enough that I was close to her. Next she started licking my thumbs as they hovered over the space bar. Finally, I had to pick her up and hold her while I wrote.

Through it all she was patient. No cat was going to be any better than her at keeping me company while I wrote. She sat on my shoulder and sniffed my hair. I knew I was going to have to make this one short. Soon she would get bored and let me know by barking at me.

Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the people that you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

She had been sitting in front of the computer for half an hour. The glow of the screen would keep her awake for hours. She hadn’t written a word. Her fingers sat on the home row keys. Mrs. Smith, her high school keyboard teacher would have been proud of her. Except she wasn’t typing. She was sitting there staring at the blank place on the screen where her words should be.

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” she began to type. It wasn’t what she wanted to say but at least there were words on the page now. She reached up and touched the screen. It gave way beneath her touch like the surface of a pond. Her fingers dipped beneath the surface. They felt dry. She could not see a hole where she had touched the screen.

She stuck her head through the screen. There was a darkened room on the other side of the screen. It looked surprisingly like the one on this side of the screen only everything was mirror image in that world. She looked back and forth to see if anyone was in this strange room.

She felt her shoulders nudge the screen and pop she was on the other side, sitting in the mirror chair, looking at the mirror screen. And yes, the text was backwards but it seemed that this was the way that things ought to be. She had no trouble reading it. It said the same thing that she had just typed while she was on the other side of the screen.

This was ridiculous. She must be imagining it. She touched the screen again. It gave way just like before. Again she stuck her head through the screen and found herself being pulled through it just like before. As she sat there looking at the screen she found herself becoming incredulous. This couldn’t be happening.

She touched the screen a third time. This time it was solid to the touch. Had she really just passed through the screen of her computer? And what if she had? Who was going to believe her? But she knew now what she was going to write about.

“He had been sitting in front of the computer for half an hour. The glow of the screen would keep him awake for hours. He hadn’t written a word. His fingers sat on the home row keys. Mr. Smith, his high school keyboard teacher would have been proud of him. Except he wasn’t typing. He was sitting there staring at the blank place on the screen where his words should be…”

Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the people you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.