Introduction to the ELM
© Dana W. Paxson 2007
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Welcome to a woven knot of stories set in the fictional world of Tarnus. If you want to skip this introduction and background and just link directly to one of the story threads, scroll to the bottom of this window and select a link. Before you do this, though, there are some features of the macramé which are hard to find but interesting to see. To get to those, read on. The literary macramé supports immersive reading of electronic fiction with handy reference materials for the component story threads. This window will show the current story itself, with no visible links or other distractions apart from ordinary scrolling and sizing controls. Two added windows, designed to avoid distraction from this main story window, give references. To the right of the story window (containing the text you’re reading) is a glossary window. To the left of the story window is a reference or article window. Any unusual name or term is linked to an entry in the Glossary. You can only see these links when you pass the mouse pointer over the linked word or phrase — that’s when the pointer changes to another shape. If you click on an indicated word or phrase in the story, the glossary window displays the selected term and its meaning. Note that this selection does not bring the glossary window in front of the story window. You make that change manually, and return manually to the story window. If you’re browsing, you may also link freely among entries in the Glossary itself. In the Glossary you can find references to articles which supply more background about certain aspects of Tarnus life, which is the setting and background for the whole literary macramé Descending Road. To find some examples, look in the Glossary for one of the words “andro", “calendar", “sandrukha", or “MuTou", and click on the cited reference you find there. The linked article will appear in the left window. This third window, like the glossary window, does not move automatically to the front of the story window — again, you make that selection. You can use the Glossary as a story directory. Different characters have different story threads. For characters having individual threads, the Glossary provides links to starting points of their stories. For Andrew, Ezzar, Ferdinand, and Grendel, among others, check out the "… story begins here” links in their respective Glossary entries. If you read the article on the sandrukha in the encyclopedia window, the end of that article will offer you a link to a passage in the main line of the novel concerning that dance of Tarnus, where Andrew and his love Leil dance it together. This passage shows some text which is made unreadable, because it is sexually explicit. Although this demonstration does not display a good means of masking text for different groups of readers, such means are available in the form of encryption or other methods. Now choose a link from the following list. The selected story thread will open. You can trace the path of a character using the links at the end of each scene. The Next link takes you to the next scene in the main story line (Descending Road). Any link listing the character you chose as the POV character (Point of View) will take you to the next scene viewed as that character sees things. Other links follow the identified character through any scene in which the character appears. Thread Starting Point Links
NOTE: Any writer following the scheme this literary macramé uses can choose to restrict links in certain parts of a story, or enable them freely, depending on the desired tightness of focus. Here, links have been placed liberally in the stories and other places, mostly to explore their possibilities. It is the job of the prose to hold the reader’s attention, and the capabilities of the literary macramé makes the writer’s strategies and tactics with embedded links more challenging. |
Reference Links
| Weaving a World | Naming of People of Tarnus |