Valencia Assignment #1

One example of a story that made good use of the multiform story is

Evening by Rachel Emily Molenaar,

http://web.mit.edu/course/21/21w765j/Final_Project/Rachel/descent.html

The story is based on an alien observer being able to place itself in the

mind of another creature and is sent to observe a family including the pets

and an unwelcome mouse.

The premise allows for simple and clear transitions between the minds of the

characters, who are intereacting with each other even if the observer is

not present. I found this very interesting as it was possible to get only

snipets and teasers from some characters and know quite a bit about others.

The ending did not tie up all of the plot points, as it varied with which

host you happened to be occupying, but it still gave the feeling of a

resolution. There was even a mouse characte to add some comic releif on

occasion:

One story which I think could have been written better was

Scan Man by Ben Sanders:

The story followed two events which demanded attention from several people

using portable telephones. The messages were intercepted on a radio scanner.

One event was a runaway boy who needs to be rescued after climbing a water

tower. The other is a criminal in a high speed chase trying to avoid the

police. The story had the problem that each story told in a linear fashion

would have been interesting, as there was a good pace and interesting people

in each story. Unfortuanately, the way it is formatted, there is no way to

follow one plot line to its conclusion without sometimes crossing the path

of the other plot line. This killed the growing suspense for both stories

and the reader was left with an unsatisfying ending. One way to fix this is

to change the links so that it is obvious which plot line will be followed

when given a choice. For example at:

The two links could be labelled "Mom" and "News Van." Then, it would be easier

to follow one story to its conclusion. A simpler solution would be to

simply put the story into linear format.

-Gabriel Valencia