Interactive Fiction

When I learned that we would be doing Interactive Fiction for class, I was initially excited; I remembered those books as a kid where you could " choose your own adventure" that I loved and I thought IF would be very similar to that. I had no idea that IF provided the player with many more options during the interaction that those old "create your own adventure" books did. Rather than simply choosing between, let's say, entering the cave or going around the cave, the reader is faced with numerous possibilities for interaction that are not clearly defined. The reader must choose the questions to ask, the path to take, the objects to hold as well as any other interactions. One example of this type of interactive fiction is " Galatea"



When Galatea first begins, the reader is introduced to a statue of a women who is standing alone. This is called the prologue From this point on, the reader is essentially in charge; the scene has been set and the reader must now "create" the story as they see fit. Throughout the story, the reader opens up a complex world that is this women's life. Galatea allows the reader to see into her past, her feelings, and her thoughts about her situation. These responses to the questions the reader poses are called "outputs" according to Monfort.







I began interacting with Galatea by saying Hello. She responded to me, and I began to ask questions ( called inputs) to her such as " tell me about your sculptor" or " tell me about hearing." Galatea responds to these questions and her responses oftentimes lead the reader into a new direction and prompts them to ask new questions. When Galatea first begins talking, her responses are short and to the point. She also gets angry or annoyed if the reader asks the same question more than once, responding curtly with " I already told you everything I know." At this point in the story, I noticed that at the top of my screen it said I had a back view of Galatea. This is an important element to the meaning of the story. When the reader first starts out speaking with Galatea, she is not facing them and her responses are vague and cold. She does not seem interested in interaction with the reader. As the story progresses and the reader gets to know Galatea better, she gains more patience with the reader and even begins to turn toward them. This signifies that she is growing increasing more comfortable with the reader and she is willing to share more of her personal life. Essentially, Galatea is like a date; at first she is a bit skeptical and aloof, but as the reader asks better questions and gains her trust, she begins to warm up to the idea of conversation and accept the possibly of some type of connection between herself and the reader.





After the initial introductions, I began to ask "harder" questions of Galatea. As I questioned her, we began to talk about her sculptor. I think this dialogue was essential to the development of the story and a pivotal point in which the relationship between the reader and Galatea begins to grow. We learn that Galatea has feelings for her sculptor and she speaks of him very fondly. She seems a bit hurt that he did not have romantic feelings for her as well.


I played the story numerous times and each time my interactions brought me down a different path. This is exactly what the intention of IF is; it allows the reader to experience different outcomes based on the questions they ask (or don't ask) and the order in which they ask them. The first time I played, I did not know that I needed to slowly peel back the layers of Galatea before asking personal questions and I jumped right in. She got angry with me very quickly and refused to speak to me. The game ended for me and I was given the directives of " Restart, Restore, or Quit." The next time I played, I was much more successful. After much prodding and picking, she eventually stepped off the pedestal and ran away with me, madly in love. What can I say, I'm a charmer. Another time I played, she turned and faced me within the first couple questions I asked of her which is different from the slowly changing views I had experienced up to that point.



One element of the game that I found extremely useful was the "help" feature. There were times throughout the game that I was confused as to how to phrase what I wanted to ask. I felt like I was running out of options, but after reading the help screen, I realized that not only could I ask Galatea questions, but I could tell her about myself as well. Recap was also extremely helpful. At some points, I had made my way deep into the story and I had forgotten some of the questions I had previously asked her. Rather than ask again and risk bothering her, I simply checked out the recap and got to read all my inputs up to that point in the game.



Ultimately, I think Galatea is more like a game than a story, but good arguments can be made for both directions. Galatea can be seen as a story because the creator obviously put great time into developing the character of Galatea. I ask shocked as to how many of my questions actually had responses. At one point, I even asked Galatea about cheese and she had a comment on it. We learn that Galatea is guarded but she has an interesting past and clearly defined opinions on different topics. She is the only character in the story we get to interact with, but the interactions are filling and rich with detail. When Galatea gets asked a question, many times she goes into great description when giving her response. Many of the IF pieces we have interacted with before give shot responses that lack any real substance, but Galatea provides detail. Galatea seemed more like a game to me because throughout my interaction, I kept thinking to myself that I had to "win.' Winning, to me, was avoiding frustrating her and having her open up and continue to tolerate my questions. As I said before, Galatea was like a first date where I was trying to make a good impression and figure out the "code", if you will, to allow myself another opportunity with her. I knew I was making progress in the "game" as she slowly turned and began to face me more and more. I also thought Galatea was similar to a game because the location never changed and we were never introduced to more characters. I feel like for a story to take place, there needs to be interaction between different people. Galatea was the only person the reader was able to have a conversation with. It also lacked a real plot.

Overall, I enjoyed Galatea more than any other piece we have experienced thus far in class. After reading the help section, my interactions with the piece were relatively easy. The author of the piece anticipated a large array of questions and many of the things I asked about were given responses. Galatea was fun to interaction with and I enjoyed getting to know her better as the work progressed.

Work Cited: Nick Monfort's "Twisty Little Passages"

Powerpoint Interaction

As a Gemini, I have a creative side to myself that I frequently try to express. I love scrap booking, making doodles, making cards…pretty much anything that has to do with arts and crafts. I spend many dollars and devote countless hours to these endeavors. There is one small downfall, though. I may be the worst artist on the face of the earth. Regardless of my desire, I have absolutely no ability. Try and try as I might ( and trust me I do) I can’t seem to get over the demeaning fact that my parents used to throw my art-work out when I was in middle school. With that being said, I highly doubted that my creation of E-poetry would differ much from my the outcome of my creative endeavors in the past. Even with tools such as Microsoft Office and iSpring, I feel inadequate; I just can’t seem to get the thoughts and ideas in my head expressed eloquently on whatever medium I am working with.
I decided, for my first piece, to use a stanza of a song I love. Song is just poetry in motion, right? After having an introduction to Microsoft Powerpoint in class, I felt like I had a basic ( and by basic I mean 3rd grade level) understanding of how to create my E-poem. The poem that I chose is about how children who are still learning about the world have very different views than adults about topics such as homelessness. The author in this poem is describing how she was shocked to see a homeless person on the sheet. She wondered how others around her seemed unaffected by this occurrence but it stopped her small little world in its tracks. She then goes on to talk about how, through our socialization, we learn to just keep “ moving our feet” and ignore the things we really should care about. I wanted to create a general feeling of hurry in the poem yet find a way to distinguish the words of the author from the world in which she lives, which is fast-paced. I began by finding a picture of a busy street and setting that to the background of my slide. I then took the first line of the poem, “ I remember the first time I saw someone “and put it in a text box at the bottom left side of the screen behind a women who was walking quickly.
I then had to decide how I wanted my text to enter the screen. Going with my previous ideas about how I wanted to poem to turn out, I decided to have it come up from the bottom slowly. I highlighted the text and then I went to the Animations tab and then to Custom Animations. A box appeared on the right with numerous options as to how the text could appear on the screen such as " Splash, Random Bars, Split, Wedge, and Wipe." The list goes on. Before this assignment, I truly had no idea as to how many options there were for the entrance of text! It was easy to choose which one I wanted; I simply chose "Ascend" and then I went to the option for speed on the right and chose "Medium." I originally tried slow ( the options were very slow,slow,medium,fast or very fast) but I thought that was TOO slow and the reader would get bored waiting for the text to appear. I then created another text box and placed it after the women which read ' lying on the cold street.' I chose to have this one in bold font to really hit the point home and to have it come in through the "Blinds" effect; I didn't want to make this one fancy because it is intended to evoke sorrow. I also wanted to add sound, which was somewhat difficult to achieve. I wanted to use the sound of a busy street, but there was nothing similar to that in the pre-loaded options. Of course, I could have uploaded a sound of my own, but that seemed like a long process which I did not want to invest the time in experiencing. My first slide was complete!
For my second slide, the lines were " I though, I just can't walk past you, this can't be true." At first I was a little lost as to what to put as a picture, but then I decided on a literal interpretation of the text. I chose a picture of a homeless person. Naturally, there was no pre-loaded pictured for that, so I had to upload my own. I was surprised as to how easy it was to put an image on a slide that wasn't in clip art. After I had my image, I created my text box again, with all the words, and chose to have them "grow and turn" which made the words appear almost one at a time without it seeming like they were separate thoughts.

For my third slide, I decided to get a little more involved with the piece. As intimidated as I was, I decided to utilize the hyperlink feature. I wanted to experiment with a hyperlink that would bring the reader to the next slide.The reader would have to click on the last set of feet in order to move on in the poem, which to me, was symbolic of the last step a person would normally take past a homeless person before they were out of view ( hey, I warned you I'm not creative) and out of mind. I created my new slide and copied 3 identical pictures of footprints. I then added my text, which was " But I learned by example, to just keep moving my feet." and then I began to tackle the hyperlink. Unfortuantly, this was easier said than done. I was met with a screen of options ( pictured below)that I had no idea how to get past.
After some looking around and choice words, I saw how easy it really was. There was an option on the left side that said " Place in This Document" where I could choose the next slide. I immediately felt a sense of accomplishment and moved on to my last and final slide.
This was my grand finale! I looked through a couple options on PowerPoint as to what else I could incorporate into my poem but didn't find anything that quite fit what I was looking for. I decided to try the sound again. This time, I was going to read the final text of the poem rather than look for pre-loaded audio. This is where I had my most fun. I understood the concept of E-poetry before this assignment, but I think this is where I first began to truly understand how different elements can effect the meaning of the poem. I wanted to record the words " It's amazing the things we all learn to do" and it took me a good 10 minutes of pondering how I wanted to say them and another 20 trials before I said it the way I wanted it! I realized that I can say those few words so many different ways. I can be sad, surprised, disappointed, reflective, ... the list just goes on. The tool for sound was really easy to use; as seen below, it was a few simple buttons.After I decided on saying my line in a disappointed tone, I had to find a picture to go along with it. I wasn't going to use words in this slide because the reader was going to hear them. I chose to do a picture representing conformity. In my picture, there are many red balls and one blue ball. The picture has no words. I think it should be noted that throughout the course of my poem, my intentions changed a bit. Although it was short, I decided to make the end a bit of a commentary on stepping outside of traditional actions and choosing your own path. The song lyrics/poem that I chose does allude to that, but I chose to allow the reader to see a picture and draw their own conclusions based on the picture given.
After using Microsoft Powerpoint to create my poem, I would have to conclude that it is relatively easy to use, even for someone who has not worked with it before. I did not know how to introduce sound or a hyperlink before this assignment, but I was able to figure out how to incorporate them with relative ease. The tabs at the top of the page are pretty descriptive and lead the reader in the right direction most of the time. My only advice is to save frequently because at one point, I deleted an entire slide with one click. Luckily for me, I know how to use the "undo" button but for someone who is a bit less computer-savvy, that might be a disaster.
Based on my creative nature, I did enjoy this assignment and I thought the creative process was enjoyable. My poem was relativity straightforward but it took me almost two hours to complete. This is not the fault of the program, but rather my fault. I experimented with many different elements of the poem before deciding which one I wanted to choose, so it did take a considerable amount of time. I can see how someone could easily get carried away in the many features of this program, but I would say that I did not. I think adding too many elements to E-poetry takes away from the meaning behind the poem; readers should be able to interact with the poem on a straight-forward basis ( in my opinion) to prevent them from getting discouraged from reading further. I think PowerPoint added to the creative process well, especially with the sound. I was able to put my own twist on the poem and express it how I saw fit. I also enjoyed choosing pictures to accompany the words on the page, although I used a literal interpretation of the words.
In terms of frustration, I don't think I experienced much when creating this work. I would have liked to add the sound of a busy street, but that was not an option that was pre-loaded. As I mentioned, somebody with more time and expertise than me could utilize that feature, but it just wasn't something I chose to do. I also would have liked to use moving pictures on my E-poem. I believe that too can be utilized in the program, but I could not figure out how. As I've said multiple times already, I really enjoyed recording my own sound which is something I normally would have shrugged off as too difficult.
Ultimately, I think the software changed my muse a bit. I don't think it enhanced it or stiffled it as much as it did point me in a direction I had not considered before. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the ability to record my own voice saying the last line made me re-think the poem and all the different ways those simple words can be spoken. I think, if given the choice, I would use a pen and paper to create a poem FIRST and then use powerpoint to present it after it was completed. I feel like if I were to write a poem using Powerpoint to start with, I would never be able to finish because I would have so many different influences and elements pulling me in opposite directions. Of course, after I wrote the poem I could change it a bit depending on what inspired me with PowerPoint. I think Powerpoint offers a user who has limited computer ability many great options to create poetry and it can act as a great beginner/intermediate program for those interested in becoming E-Poets.

Representatives and A Study in Shades

The first piece of work I chose to analyze was Representatives by Megan Sapnar. In this poem, the poet is describing a relationship that is strained between two sisters. When the reader first opens the poem, a green screen pops up. On one side is a picture of a women sitting behind a computer screen, seemingly at work. She has what appears to be a headset on. On the other side, there is a picture of another women who is on the phone. A fast-paced drum song is playing in the background. The music is steady and powerful, which ( as the reader will see ) is fitting to the tone of the poem. Once the reader clicks the picture, the image remains but the sound of a phone ringing begins to play. The phone rings a few times and then a woman's voice picks up and says " Hello?" Both pictures are shaking slightly and there are black lines connecting the two images which are symbolic of the telephone connection.

As the reader hovers their cursor over the women on the phone, the words " A women I've never met before joins me in the kitchen." The reader must then click on her image. The screen then turns red as the poem begins to appear. The different lines appear in bold black as the screen behind them remains bright red. The poem speaks of the strained relationship between the two sisters and how both of them enjoy the distance between them. It is not uncommon to associate the color red with anger or rage which appear to be the message of the poem thus far and describes how the first women is feeling. The music in the background features what sounds like a morocco which instantly reminded me of the sound a rattlesnake makes before it strikes its victim. The interaction at this point is limited; the reader simply follows the text which appears without any clicking or searching.


After the reader has finished the first section, they must click on the image again to return to the main, green page. They will now hover over the other image of the women at the computer. The words " Some things are truly lost I will tell her" appear. The reader will now click on her image and the screen will turn a serene shade of blue. Text will appear which tells of all the different events this sister is telling to the other sister. Some events are serious, such as someone who is ill, while others are trivial, such as the recipe to a pasta dish. The blue color of the background and the lack of emotion displayed by this sister leads the reader to believe that the disdain of the relationship described by the first sister may be one sided. In fact, the second sister ends the conversation with " I will miss you." She seems to either have no idea of the turmoil between them or simply does not give in to the anger displayed by the first sister. The music chosen for this part of the poem is predictable and relaxing.


This piece of electronic poetry was simple yet effective. The differences in color led the reader to draw conclusions about each of the sister's opinion on the relationship. The music also played a role in determining the tone of the poem. These are elements that could not be utilized if the poem was written traditionally. The poem may have been difficult to understand if the two images of the women were not present; on paper, the reader may have gotten confused that two people were talking in the poem rather than one. This poem is fairly simple and the author does not employ similes or metaphors throughout the poem When the second sister says " I will miss you" at the end of the poem, the reader is left to wonder why the relationship is so rocky between them. I found myself thinking that " I will miss you" could be taken literally as in the sister will look forward to talking to her sister the next time or it could be taken as the calm sister misses the person her angry sister used to be. This poem, although simple, may not translate well on paper and is much more effective and enjoyable as E-poetry.

The second poem, A Study in Shades, is written by Robert Kandall. When the reader first opens the poem, there are two pictures, similar to the first poem, with an older man on one side and a young women on the other side. Both pictures are created in a gray scale and are of equal darkness. There are arrows under each picture, with the first group of lines of poem under the man visible and only a single line of the poem under the women visible. The reader will read the first section of the poem under the old man first, then click the arrow the is pointing to the right under the old man to continue the poem. After click the arrow, new text will appear under the old man, and the picture of the women on the other side will fade slightly. Each time the reader goes deeper into the poem of the old man, the picture of the women on the right will fade. By the end of the poem, the picture of the women has completely gone white and she is no longer visible. These images fit perfectly with the message of the poem and enhance its meaning greatly. The poem of the old man, who appears to suffer from some type of memory loss, is describing how the image of the women sitting across from him ( who we learn later is his daughter) continues to fade into the background. He is seeing all of her features and characteristics, but he seems to be missing the big picture; he struggles to "place " her and can not recall that she is his daughter. As the poem continues, her picture fades away which is symbolic of his memory of her slipping through the cracks in his mind.

The reader will now go to the arrows under the section where the picture of the women once was. They will click through her poem just like they did the old man's poem, but this time, something different will occur. As the reader gets deeper into the poem, the picture of the old man grows darker and darker. By the last couple lines, his picture is completely black and his features are no longer visible; only his outline can be seen. The reader can not stop this process from happening as they click through the poem. The author uses alliteration with the word "black" which is used to describe how the daughter feels about her father. These feelings are reinforced by the picture getting darker and darker, an allusion to her inability to penetrate into her fathers once lucid mind. The daughter talks of the aspects of her life, which she stored with her father for safe keeping now being lost. The author does a great job in conveying the hopelessness she feels and the despair she experiences as she watches her father slip further and further away. While this poem may translate relatively well to print, the pictures do add to the message of the poem. The reader is limited ( like the first example) in their interact; they seem to be along for the ride rather than the driver.

These pieces of E-poetry are simple in comparison to other pieces we have looked at thus far. They are straightforward and reveal themselves to the reader rather than making the reader search for the answers. I personally enjoyed reading them; I think too much animation and interaction can be frustrating and take away from the message of the poem. I also enjoyed pontificating on the first poem; how did the relationship between the sisters take such a turn? Why do they seem to have such opposing feelings regarding their relationship? I enjoyed these two pieces of work more than some of the others for their simplicity and message.

URL Of A Study in Shades: See Comments
URL Of Representatives: See Comments

Warming up...MAYBE

I decided to come into the second assignment with a clean slate; I was going to give E-Poetry another try with the new found knowledge that I can't really COMPARE regular poetry to E-Poetry, but rather I should see E-Poetry as a different genre.
After reading the first part of the assignment written by Deena Larson, I think I began to have a better understand of what E-poetry is all about. I think she did a great job of providing examples for each different medium used. My personal favorites were "Nio" by Jim Andrews and "Strings" by Dan Waber. I think I may have preferred those the best because the interactions were easy to understand. Some of the E-poetry we have experiences in the past can be confusing to the point where it discouraged me from trying to understand the message it was trying to convey. I also enjoyed the website that allowed different people to collaborate on writing a single poem. Each person is able to write a line or two in a poem that had already been started by someone else. The poem has influences from many different writers. I think this can be useful because it encourages people to add their own vision on to a poem while incorporating the vision of someone else.

The poetry that we read this week I thought was more engaging and enjoyable than last week. As previously stated, I don't really enjoy when someone else reads the poem for me. I like being given the freedom to interpret the poem as I see fit. With this in mind, I must comment on the poem " Firefly" by Deena Larson. This was by far my favorite poem presented this week. I loved how I was able to choose the story while still staying within the lines that the author assigned. I enjoyed changing each line and seeing how it effected the poem as a whole.

I also enjoyed "Penetration" although it did confuse me a bit. As the reader continued on in the poem, the flower on the side grew. The colors of the key words ( which them redirected the reader to another stanza of the poem) changed depending on if the reader had completed this section or not. I eventually did complete the whole poem and I think I grasped the main concept, but it was confusing at times because I wasn't sure if I was at the beginning,middle or end of the poem. I could see how this confusion could be meaningful to the context of the poem though.

The last piece I wanted to comment on was "War Games." I think the idea behind this piece is brilliant. The reader was instructed to try to "click on the landmine" which was moving at a fast pace at the top of the screen. Each time the reader missed, a fact about landmines and their devastation would be brought up. After reading the fact, I went back to tried to click the landmine again, with no success. Eventually I caught the landmine ( I was rewarded with a prosthetic hand) but only after numerous attempts. This was fun but also informative. I think the majority of people won't be satisfied until they catch the landmine. This desire propels them to continue to try, thus providing them with more facts each time they miss.

I think I may be warming up to E-Poetry. My only gripe is that some of the examples are too confusing. I can't speak for anyone else, but if I can't figure out how the animation works within a couple minutes, I am totally discouraged and have lost all desire to read the poem. I think simple is better. If the website is easy to understand, I can see how E-Poetry would add to the meaning behind the poem and engage the reader more deeply than traditional poetry can.

My initial response to e-poetry based on pieces assigned so far is undetermined. I have mixed feelings about the pieces we have experienced thus far. When I think of poetry that is written in books or even online without animation in comparison to poetry that is read for you or paired with pictures, I immediately think various best selling books that have been made into movies. A big fan of reading, I thoroughly enjoy being able to sit down with a book and read the words of the author while injecting some of my own personal story into the book. Although the characters in a book are created by the author, the reader does have some input as to how the characters look or sound. For example, Wally Lamb may have written " She's Come Undone" but I fell in love with Dolores as I saw her in my mind. Once a best selling book becomes a movie, it inevitably leaves those who have read the book disappointed. Simply put, the movies never live up to the characters as we imagine them.
" The Best Cigarette" poem was enjoyable. I enjoyed the text version much more than the Action Poetry version. With the text version I was able to linger over words or images that I deemed important. It was self paced. When the poem was read for me, it felt rushed. I scrambled to keep up with the reader and felt like I was missing the beauty of the poem. The images presented were enjoyable but I much rather contextualize the poem myself.
The poem by Lewis was a bit confusing at first, but after a couple reading, I think I started to understand the message he was trying to convey. In terms of the flash version of the poem with the movable tile pieces, to put it bluntly, if I wanted to play with a puzzle I could go to a game site to do that. I understand ( or at least I believe I do) that the puzzle pieces fitting together is a symbol of his many lives. I guess I would consider that adding to the message of the poem, but I am not a large fan.
The interactive version of "Mermaid" was just bizarre to me. The words were so small that they were unreadable and everything shook as you went to click on it. To me, that defeated the entire purpose of having a poem.
Maybe e-poetry is useful in some ways though. We live in a world where most adults can not concentrate on a given task for any extended period of time. If readers can click, move pieces, listen to someone else read the poetry and shake words, maybe it will give them that extra focus they need to actually complete the poem. Personally, thus far, I am not a fan of e-poetry but I do think it has potential. If a writer is going to add images to their poem, maybe it would appeal to me more if they put images of themselves and the time in their life when the poem was written. I feel like if they were to do that, I could connect with the author and better understand their emotions and feelings at the time. I don't enjoy when the poetry is read aloud because ( just like the books versus the movie argument) the reader is able to put inflection in words that I may not have or they may give no meaning to parts I think are crucial to the poem. It almost discourages the reader from thinking for themselves about the words presented. I much rather allow my mind to do the work than have someone do it for me.