The paradox of rereading in hypertext fiction

Abstract

Rereading often involves reading the same thing again to see something new. This paradox becomes more pronounced in an interactive story, where a reader's choices can literally change what the reader sees in each reading. There has been some discussion of rereading in both non-interactive and interactive stories. There has not, however, been any detailed study of what readers think they are doing as they reread hypertext fiction that changes dynamically as the result of reader choice. An understanding of this would help authors/designers of hypertext fiction create better hypertext that is explicitly intended to encourage rereading. To explore this issue, we conducted semi-structured interviews with participants who repeatedly read a complex hypertext fiction. Participants had trouble describing what they were doing as "rereading", and were looking for either the text, or their understanding of the story, to remain constant between readings. This difficulty highlights the paradoxical nature of rereading in interactive stories, and suggests the need for further research into this phenomenon.