Storyspace

Software tool designed for creating and reading hypertext fiction, distinguished by its support of non-linear narrative structures and conditional logic systems called guard fields, which has played a foundational role in the development of electronic literature
Robert Arellano 2025-11-04

Explication

Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce, and John B. Smith developed Storyspace in the late 1980s (Bolter and Joyce 41-50). This development marked a pivotal moment in the history of electronic literature. Joyce and Bolter initially gave out copies to colleagues through riverrun ltd in 1987, before Storyspace received its first commercial release through Eastgate Systems in 1990 (Bernstein, “Storyspace 1” 172-181). Unlike many early hypertext systems that have been lost to technological obsolescence, Storyspace has maintained continuous development under Mark Bernstein’s leadership since the 1990s. Bernstein developed Storyspace for Windows (1992) and created Storyspace 2 (2003) as a complete reimplementation. The software evolved further with Storyspace 3 (2015), built on the Hereford back-end—a database engine developed for Tinderbox, Eastgate’s personal information management and note-taking software—and Storyspace 3.5, which integrated traditional guard fields with an enhanced action language while maintaining backward compatibility—a remarkable achievement in software longevity that challenges assumptions about digital preservation.

Storyspace introduced architectonic writing—a method of spatial organization, where narrative elements are arranged and connected in three-dimensional conceptual space rather than linear sequence (Bolter, Writing Space). Writers create “writing spaces”, discrete textual units (similar to lexias or nodes) connected via various types of links and can visualize these connections in multiple ways: as a map of interconnected nodes, as an outline, or as a chart showing hierarchical relationships (Joyce, “Storyspace as a Hypertext System” 381-387).

One of the software’s most distinctive features is “guard fields”—conditional logic statements that control reader’s previous choices, reading history, or other variables. This action language enables authors to create sophisticated adaptive narratives, where story elements become available dynamically, creating personalized reading experiences that respond to individual reader behavior.

Storyspace enabled landmark works of electronic literature across multiple genres. In fiction, Michael Joyce’s afternoon, a story (1990) opens with the narrator’s haunting uncertainty: “I want to say I may have seen my son die this morning,” leading readers through a labyrinthine exploration of memory, guilt, and the unreliability of perception.

Stuart Moulthrop’s Victory Garden (1992) presents the Gulf War through 933 interconnected nodes and 2,804 links through multiple characters’ perspectives—with no single protagonist. Each character contributes their own viewpoint to the networked story, offering different possible endings depending on the reader’s navigation choices. Shelley Jackson’s richly illustrated Patchwork Girl (1995) reimagined Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) by piecing together the female monster that Dr. Frankenstein destroys in the original. In Jackson’s illuminated version, the Storyspace interface requires readers to navigate by clicking on different images of the monster’s body, uncovering the individual histories of the women whose parts were assembled into the creature. Robert Arellano’s Sunshine ‘69 (1996), published under the pen name Bobby Rabyd, utilized Storyspace’s authoring capabilities to export HTML for web publication.

The platform also supported pioneering works of poetry and nonfiction that established the scholarly credibility of electronic literature. In poetry, Deena Larsen’s Marble Springs (1993), one of the first interactive hypertext poetry collections, allowed readers to explore a fictional 19th-century frontier town through poems, maps, and historical documents about its women residents. Stephanie Strickland’s True North (1997) achieved dual recognition, winning both the Salt Hill Hypertext Prize and the Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize. In nonfiction, George P. Landow’s The Dickens Web (1992) won the prestigious EDUCOM/NCRIPTAL Award for “Best Software in the Humanities”, establishing the template for collaborative scholarly hypertext. David Kolb’s Socrates in the Labyrinth (1994) pioneered philosophical hypertext by challenging traditional linear argumentation through experimental structures across 307 interconnected nodes.

Storyspace’s significance extends beyond individual works to its foundational role in establishing electronic literature as a distinct field. The software challenged traditional notions of linear narrative, authorial control, and reader passivity. Its remarkable achievement in software longevity—maintaining backward compatibility across decades of technological change—challenges assumptions about digital preservation and demonstrates how specialized tools can sustain entire literary movements (Barnet 45-67).

The platform’s influence on hypertext theory, ergodic literature, and digital humanities scholarship continues through ongoing academic research and creative works, establishing Storyspace as both a creative tool and a critical component of the historical development of electronic literature.

See Also

• Authoring Software - Tools for creators to design, develop, and publish interactive or multimedia stories without the need for advanced programming knowledge
• Electronic Literature (e-lit) - Variety of born-digital genres and formats that engage the capabilities of computing, often investigating the materiality of our everyday interactions with digital media
• Ergodic Literature - Texts that require significant effort from the reader to traverse, often involving non-linear navigation and interaction that contribute to the narrative's meaning
• Hyperreading - Form of non-linear reading enabled by digital texts, characterized by clicking on hyperlinks, skimming, and scanning, allowing readers to quickly gather information from multiple sources

Works Referenced

Arellano, Robert [Bobby Rabyd]. Sunshine ‘69. 1996. www.sunshine69.com.

Barnet, Belinda. Memory Machines: The Evolution of Hypertext. Anthem Press, 2013.

Bernstein, Mark. “Storyspace 1.” Proceedings of the Thirteenth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, ACM, 2002, pp. 172-181.

---. “Storyspace 3.” Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, ACM, 2016, pp. 201-206.

Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.

Bolter, Jay David, and Michael Joyce. “Hypertext and Creative Writing.” Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Hypertext, ACM, 1987, pp. 41-50.

Jackson, Shelley. Patchwork Girl. Eastgate Systems, 1995.

Joyce, Michael. afternoon, a story. Eastgate Systems, 1990.

Joyce, Michael. “Storyspace as a Hypertext System for Writers and Readers of Varying Ability.” Hypertext ‘91, ACM, 1991, pp. 381-387.

Kolb, David. Socrates in the Labyrinth. Eastgate Systems, 1994.

Landow, George P. The Dickens Web. Eastgate Systems, 1992.

Larsen, Deena. Marble Springs. Eastgate Systems, 1993.

Moulthrop, Stuart. Victory Garden. Eastgate Systems, 1992.

Strickland, Stephanie. True North. Eastgate Systems, 1997.

Further Reading

Bernstein, Mark. “Can We Talk About Spatial Hypertext?” ACM Hypertext 2011, ACM, 2011, pp. 103-112.

Bernstein, Mark, and Stee McMorris. “Links of Darkness: Hypertext and Horror.” ACM Hypertext 2022, ACM, 2022.

Ensslin, Astrid. Pre-Web Digital Publishing and the Lore of Electronic Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Joyce, Michael. Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. University of Michigan Press, 1995.

Landow, George P. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

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