Interview
Charles Deemer
Welcome to another Reactive
Interview. This time we talk to Charles
Deemer author of the
hyperdrama plays Chateau de Mort and The Deal. He is also one of
the guiding hands in the collaborative novel Downtown Anywhere. I had a go at
finding out how he feels about writing. See what you think.
Q.
What first interested you to write in hypertext?
My first hypertext writing project was commissioned, what became the
play "Chateau de Mort." I had never heard the term hypertext before -
in fact, I had written two "simultaneous-action" plays before I
realised I was writing hypertext and there was software to make my job hugely
easier! I was interested in the form because of its incredible intimacy (the
audience in the lap of the actors) and its complex dynamics and dramaturgy.
Q.
What do you think are the main advantages of writing in hypertext over a more
linear media?
Depends on the genre. In hyperdrama, you can create fully dimensional
theatre/performance environments that are impossible to achieve on a
traditional stage: for example, an audience member can be surrounded by 3
scenes going on at once, all playing off one another, like musical lines in a
symphony.
In non-fiction, hypertext permits a wonderful layering of information so
that a variety of audiences can be addressed at once, from surface immediate
info to deeper layers of meaning.
In hyperfiction ... I'm still trying to figure out what it means!
Q. How much does the current state
of technology restrict a hypertext writer? Chateau de Mort is in Dos format, is
this because you feel the web is not yet advanced enough to cope with hypertext
fiction with the problems of downloading etc?
I don't feel any technological restrictions, as far as WRITING (text) is
concerned. Speed is still an issue with hypermedia. I did Chateau in DOS
because Iris, a DOS hypertext program, was the first program I became familiar
with. Nothing would be lost doing Chateau in HTML - except who has time to
change all the coding? :-) I will be getting Storyspace soon, only because
that's where all the "official clout" is today in hyperfiction and
serious hypertext.
Q. How much feedback do you get
through the net and how does this effect your writing?
I get some fan letters but that's about it. So far, feedback from the
net hasn't really affected my writing one way or the other. No: I did get some
great feedback on my hypertext sonnets, which convinced me to abandon the
project entirely! Someone figured out how many thousands of sonnets I would
have to write with the networking pattern I had established. I got exhausted
just thinking of it - and so quit.
Q.Where do you think hypertext
fiction is going in the future?
While I am convinced hyperdrama and hypertext non fiction are here to
stay, I am not sure hyperfiction has a future at all - or if so, it will
continue to be on two extreme fronts: games entertainment on the one hand and
eclectic even snobbish postmodern academic mumbojumbo on the other. I have a
hard time imagining "a popular hypertext novel." I'm not sure readers
want to do the WORK that it takes to read hypertext fiction. In hyperdrama, the
action is live, real, vibrant - it's not like READING. Hyperdrama is physically
more dimensional. Hyperfiction requires a lot of decision-making from the
reader, and I'm not sure the reading public is up to it.
URL- http://www.leo.mistral.co.uk/hyper/cd.htm
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Roxana Purdea
ropur@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia Press