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The Project
Mapping the Transition from Page to Screen ran from March 2002 – February
2003. It facilitated examination and analysis of a unique body
of material alongside a programme of experiential research involving
a collaboration between Kate Pullinger, a print-based author
keen to investigate the potential of electronic literature; Sue
Thomas, originally a print-based author but now working in both
media, and the trAce team of specialists. Pullinger's engagement
with the project was a combination of training and support as
she learned how to read and create works in the digital medium.
This project is a snapshot of a very specific evolutionary
moment in the history of literature which could be compared
to the moment
when painters first began to make use of the camera. Although
the camera did not come to replace painting, it altered the
nature of artistic visual experience. Online writing is
poised in a
very transitory moment in its own development. It currently
stands outside most English Studies and at this point it
is not yet
known what contribution, if any, it will make to English
Literature. Nor is it known how New Media Writing will affect
the way writers
approach the making of texts, or the way they are read. Our
area of practice is new, experimental and largely unrecorded.
We hope
that this research project helps to promote understanding
and appreciation of New Media Writing.
March 2002
Sue Thomas interviews Kate Pullinger at the start of the project:
Please outline your personal history as a user of technology
of all types. For example, how would you describe your interactions
with typewriters, cameras, audio, cars, camcorders, toasters,
etc?
I’ve always been fairly confident with technology, although
I have a tendency to not read how-to manuals and find my own
ways of making things work, ways that aren’t always the most
efficient. I’m not afraid of technology, but I’ve never been
all that interested in it either. I took a typing course in
secondary school because I knew I wanted to write and thought
it would be useful, and it has proved to be one of the more useful
bits of training I have had. Being a North American, I learned
to drive at 16, also a useful skill.
As a writer I progressed from manual typewriter to electric,
to electric with a one-line memory, to my first computer, which
I bought in about 1990 or 91 – a laptop with dual floppy drive,
no hard drive. I bought another laptop in 94 or 95, this time
with a hard drive of its own. Throughout this I only ever used
the computer as a glorified typewriter. Then I did a six-month
fellowship at the Cambridge in 1995/96 and it was there that
I began to use e-mail for the first time. I’d been wanting to
use it for a while, and took the opportunity of being able to
access the unversity’s server from the rooms where I was living
in Jesus College. I bought my most recent computer – a PC – a
couple of years ago.
Over the last few years I’ve begun to use the internet for shopping – primarily
online food shopping, books and travel. Then last year I was
asked to teach for trAce; part of the reason I wanted to teach
for trAce was because I knew it would force me to begin to use
my computer and the internet more extensively.
Do you enjoy problem-solving? When technical things
go wrong, do you enjoy figuring out the solution yourself,
or prefer someone else to just fix it?
Yes and no. I do like to try to fix things myself, but I would
really prefer someone else to fix it but will fix things myself
to save money. However, I’ve had remarkably few problems with
my computers – on my last laptop the screen died and there was
really nothing that could be done about that so I had to buy
a new one. I would much prefer to pay someone else to fix a
car or a tv and would never attempt to take anything apart to
see if I could fix it.
You have written for both the page and for the screen
and, in the case of The Piano, even ‘from’ the screen, as it
were. Could you outline the differences and similarities between
those experiences, and say something about how you expect the
medium of the internet to compare with them?
Writing prose fiction and writing for the screen are entirely
different. They have nothing in common except typing. And,
perhaps, telling stories, creating characters. But the actual
techniques bear no relation to each other. The novel can encompass
so much, hundreds of years, many characters, lots of different
settings, etc, etc, while the focus of the screenplay is necessarily
much narrower. The novel allows you to explore in depth the
psychology of your characters, while with screenwriting the only
way to explore psychology is through what you can show your character
doing on the screen. In a way the novel is all about back-story,
while film has only the barest minimum of back-story in order
to give the characters depth.
I have found learning to write for the screen fascinating; part
of what is appealing about it is the fact that it is highly collaborative. With
my current project there have been three other people involved
from the earliest stage – the producer, the script editor, and
the director. However, I’m very pleased that I also continue
to write prose fiction because there is something about the solitary
nature of writing a novel that I find sustaining.
Writing the novelisation of ‘The Piano’ was yet another completely
different experience, primarily dominated by the fact I had to
write it in 6 weeks. The material was not mine, and Jane Campion
had already written a small section of the novel so the rest
of the book – in terms of tone, content, style, etc. – was determined
by that.
I would imagine that writing for the internet will be something
completely new yet again. Content determined by the limits/advantages
of the technology, much like screenwriting perhaps. For me one
of the appealing aspects of learning how to write for the internet
will be the chance to think about my work in more visual terms.
Have you given any thought to how you might rework some
of your existing writing for the web? For example, you could
take a story from My Life… and give it three different alternative
endings. Or would you rather start from scratch with new stories? Do
you expect to be writing differently and about different things
once you begin writing on and with the web?
I’m not keen on reworking old material for this project. I’d
rather start with new ideas. And I do expect to be writing differently,
although probably not about different things – I expect my current
and re-current obsessions will surface in this work as much as
any other.
Although I have yet to write any hypertext or hyperfiction I
have spent a lot of time in recent months thinking about what
it might do for me as a writer, and as a reader. At this stage,
the business of sitting in front of my computer and clicking
my way around a text is not very appealing to me as a reader. I’m
also ambivalent about the idea of creating choice for the viewer/reader. When
I go see a film or read a novel I don’t want to make choices,
I want the experienced to be ‘authored’, for me that’s the essence
of what makes something interesting. But I understand that hyperfiction
should be read differently than ordinary fiction, and I’m interested
in exploring those possibilities in finding new ways to tell,
and be told, stories.
I’m interested in the way that young people are accustomed to
making narrative choices through computer games. I can see that
whereas an older generation might want to sit back and watch
an hour-long tv programme without having to make choices in the
narrative, younger people might be interested in a narrative
that includes other possibilities, other material to explore. My
plan is to write a hyperfiction that will serve as a template,
or development tool, for a multi-stranded narrative drama for
digital television.
My idea is for a four-part series. Based around a conventional,
analogue drama that takes place over four hour long episodes,
the digital viewer will have a number of hours of streamed or
multi-stranded narrative threads that add to and enhance their
viewing experience. These strands will be a combination of additional
material, fictional webcams, interviews, etc., that combine ideas
drawn from fanzines, computer games, websites, as well as all
the ways that viewers get additional material about programmes
they like. The whole thing will be cheaply produced using digital
technology.
My idea is for a supernatural horror thriller, as I think that
the multi-stranded narrative will work very well with a story
that involves hidden clues and gathering information from different
points of view. My plan is to create a hyperfiction, itself
multi-stranded, that will enable me to explore the story from
multiple viewpoints. The idea of a multi-stranded digital television
drama appeals to me because it occurs to me that there is a way
in which the opportunities for additional material make it an
essentially novelistic form.
When you look ahead at the year of research, thinking,
and writing which lies before you, can you identify three positive
and three negatives which you expect to find? (We’ll look
back on these in 12 months time.)
Positives: Learning how to write basic html and exploring
the possibilities for multi-stranded narrative, learning how
to use the technology more effectively, learning more about what’s
out there for me as a reader and a writer.
Negatives:Already I dread all the stuff – the huge vast
weight of it all - that is out there on the web, I’m not sure
I want to spend a lot of time worrying about how something looks
visually when there are people I could pay to do that for me
(?!), getting very distracted and never finishing my half-finished
novel.
April 2002
M.J.Rose discusses Kate's journal in her column for Wired
News.
Kate Pullinger, Sue Thomas and Helen Whitehead appeared at the State
of the Arts Symposium on Electronic Literature at UCLA, Los Angeles, 4-6
April 2002.
Kate Pullinger: Navigating the Borders - Edges and Interfaces
with Stuart Moulthrop, Lev Manovich, Raine Koskimaa and Diana
Slattery
Sue Thomas: Electronic Literature in the University with Larry
McCaffrey, Alan Liu, Loss Glazier and Victoria Vesna
Helen Whitehead: Accessibility and Diversity with Sue Thomas,
Jaishree Odin, Ravi Shankar and Fran Ilich
May 2002
Kate Pullinger launches her personal website http://www.katepullinger.com
June 2002
Kate Pullinger invites participation in an informal
survey into the nature of the hyperlink
July 2002
Kate reports on the first few months of her project at Incubation,
the trAce International Conference on Writing and the Internet
September 2002
Sue Thomas starts six months' research leave to work on the
project. She begins with Tools
of the Trade looking at the hardware and software writers
use on the web and inviting suggestions for the project's Online
Toolkit.
October 2002
What are writers doing on the internet and how are they doing
it? We launch a major survey to
find out.
December 2002
Join us live for an Online Seminar on Sunday
15th December 2002 when Kate Pullinger chairs a discussion with Deena Larsen,
Rita Raley and Rob Wittig.
January 2003
Seminar at The Nottingham Trent University, 6pm Monday
20th January 2003. Kate Pullinger and Sue Thomas report on findings
from the project. Open to the public and free of charge. More
information.
February 2003
Opening the Space: Online Guide and Toolkit now
launched. This combined Toolkit and Guide provides inspiration, skills and support
for writers working online with new media. It was devised as a result of an extensive
survey into the way writers work with computers and the internet and offers useful
information for everyone, whether new or experienced.
Read the Chat log of the Online Seminar
on Sunday 15th December 2002 when Kate Pullinger chairs a discussion with Deena
Larsen, Rita Raley and Rob Wittig.
Discuss the
issues raised by this project.
Coming later in 2003
Final interview with Kate Pullinger
The project has now ended but Kate Pullinger's journal is still
available here
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