Developer(s) Eastgate Systems Operating system | Development status Active License proprietary | |
Original author(s) Initial release October 1987; 29 years ago (1987-10) | ||
Storyspace is a software program for creating, editing, and reading hypertext fiction. It can also be used for writing and organizing fiction and non-fiction intended for print. Maintained and distributed by Eastgate Systems, the software is available both for Windows and Mac.
Contents
History
Storyspace was the first software program specifically developed for creating, editing, and reading hypertext fiction. It was created in the 1980s by Jay David Bolter and Michael Joyce, who presented it to the first international meeting on Hypertext at Chapel Hill in October 1987.
Artistic and educational use
Several classics of hypertext literature were created using Storyspace, such as Afternoon, a story by Michael Joyce, Victory Garden by Stuart Moulthrop and Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson.
Storyspace has also been used extensively in secondary and tertiary education for teaching writing skills and critical thinking. It has been used for teaching creative writing in particular, and was especially popular in the early years of the web when hypertext linking was less fluid and web pages had to be hand-coded in HTML. Proponents argue that Storyspace's visual maps of how hypertext nodes or lexia are connected allow students to focus on writing in hypertext rather than on technical issues, and that linking and/or visually juxtaposing ideas allows students to develop a visual logic.