Comment Hypertext fiction needs multiple authors (Score 1) 208
A lot of people pointed out various problems with hypertext fiction, but I think one of the bigger ones is the fact that an author wants a story read from beginning to end so that they don't waste effort on stuff the reader won't read. A lot of people have also mentioned that most examples of hypertext fiction have instead been called games, and I think a successful one would probably need to be approached more like developing a game than writing a story, with multiple writers branching off of a main trunk and working collaboratively. It could be an opportunity to explore different characters, ideas or settings that the trunk hints at but doesn't develop fully. So, in a sense, one could consider all of those "universe" novels (e.g. Star Wars universe, Star Trek universe) to be hypertext fiction of a sort, since that's essentially what they do.