ABSTRACT
This chapter explores reader responses to hyperlinks in a third-generation hypertext fiction and offers a new method of gathering reader responses to individual hyperlinks through structured interviews. It begins by engaging with existing theoretical and empirical research on hyperlinks in digital fiction, including work which has investigated their structural, semantic, and cognitive function. On this basis, it proposes a new meta-typology of hyperlinks on a scale that maps degrees of schema disruption and writerly play and experimentation. We then outline the empirical study which was designed to examine the different types and associated cognitive effects of hyperlinks in Lyle Skains’ web-based hypertext fiction The Futographer. We implement a think-aloud protocol designed to capture reader engagement with hyperlinks in terms of deliberation and decision-making. We provide an empirically based typology of hyperlinks for digital fiction and show ways in which digital fiction readers employ specific cognitive strategies to parse multilinear hypertext narratives. Our analyses provide evidence that readers do recognise different types of links, that they reflect on links in anticipatory ways, and that they prefer to read for the plot by selecting clear, narrative navigation options over more affective, expressive, and exploratory links. To reflect the reader responses, we utilise and expand the cognitive model of reader self-positioning proposed in Chapter 2 – comprising authentic, reluctant role-player, and rejecter – to include a willing role-player position. Overall, our data suggest that hypertext readers follow strongly plot-driven strategies that combine with medial contemplations that are specific to the hypertext medium.
