From Page to Screen - WRAP: Warwick Research Archive Portal ...

developing body ofknowledge.'
The flaw in his argument lies in the different premises on which his definitions of the
two categories of exploratory and constructive hypertext are based. Exploratory
hypertexts are products and are defined by the activities of their readers (or their
audience), while constructive hypertexts are looked at from the perspective ofthe author
(or scriptor) and are seen as a tool for organising material, a "tool for inventing,
discovering, and testing multiple, alternative, organizational structures'". Exploratory
hypertexts are 'finished' objects of consumption, constructive hypertexts tools for
creation and a creation process and instead of different types of hypertexts, the two
forms do appear rather as two aspects of the same process: the process of
construction/authoring in a hypertext system (constructive hypertext) and the
subsequent consumption / reading ofthe result (exploratory hypertext).
Joyce does, however, make use of the term 'constructive' hypertext to describe not only
individual instances of hypertext creation, but to describe the system 7 which enables
"audiences of experts as well as novice readers alike to act as 'scriptors'." And it is in this
perception, the view of the hypertext system as an authoring tool and as an enabler for
collaboration and collaborative construction of text, rather than as the individual
hypertext, where Joyce's terminology becomes useful and where I will start my
investigations.
(Collaborative) constructing / authoring of literary texts will be the focus of this chapter,
both in electronic form and in print. Different forms and degrees ofcollaboration can be
identified. Firstly, the 'single author'text, which still displays a great amount ofinevitable
or planned collaboration from many sides, and which raises question of the (non-)
existence of the single authorial voice and the (im-)possibility of the solitary genius,
especially in the context of the intertextuality debate. Secondly, we can find
collaborations of a small, limited group of named authors on a project, often under strict
5 Joyce, "Siren Shapes", p.rr,
eJoyce, "Siren Shapes", p.I2.
7 One of which, Storyspace, Joyce himself was involved in creating, and another one, the WWW is
frequently used for collaborations.
8 Joyce, "Siren Shapes", P.I3.
Chapter 4 - page 133