Adventures in Hypertext
For this assignment I created a digital ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Mother Holle.” It became clear that there are benefits to presenting this kind of text as a hypertext (or digital text that includes links). It is much less cumbersome to move through the story than it is in a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It is also impossible to look up other endings without following the path of decisions to them, which helps keep the story intact. Additionally, it would have been much easier to insert other kinds of media into this format had I wanted to. However, I wonder if there are benefits to book versions of Choose Your Own Adventure stories that I have forgotten because I have not read one in awhile.
One benefit of creating a hypertext version of “Mother Holle” in particular was the ability to directly contrast the paths that the two sisters take. “Mother Holle” and other tales like it contrast the actions of a kind girl and an unkind girl, often sisters. By adapting the tale into a Choose Your Own Adventure, the consequences of the girls’ actions are more clearly the result of the choices they make because as the reader, you are actively making these decisions. This, combined with the hypertext’s insistence that the reader follow each step to an ending instead of reading it independently, helps to accentuate the Grimms’ didactic lessons.
Sources:
– The images was taken from Wikimedia Commons
– The interactive fairy tale was made using Twine
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