Utilizing interactive fiction open-source software Twine, I was interested in exploring how the creation process of hypertext branching-path narratives can facilitate the investigation of personal histories and coping with permanence. Twine enables the creation of nonlinear narrative that can serve as storyboards for game development or interactive web-based pieces of fiction in their own right, providing diversified stories for reader and creator alike using only browsers for delivery of content.

I used Twine to investigate how a story or occurrence could be revisited by an author in an attempt to actualize varied paths. Whatever reason people write, whatever they write about, we are able to revisit our personal narratives – our histories –  in order to embellish them, re-enact them differently or to simply exist in those spaces again. We can obtain agency we presume we don’t have over permanence by writing experiences down, revisiting and reworking them, and then exploring those chronicles with varied approaches utilizing interactive hypertext via platforms like Twine. You cannot change the past, but you can change how you engage with it, and some may find closure or catharsis in doing so. 

I hope you enjoy this branching path short story.

More information