Ways to Link

The concept of a hyperlink doesn't bear explaining, does it? Can you remember how many hyperlinks you followed to reach this guide after you opened your web browser? We take hyperlinks for granted because they are such a fundamental part of the web, and yet, we're still collectively figuring out all of their uses.

Hypertext is still such a young medium that although the world mostly agrees that there exists categories of links, there isn't yet a consensus on what these categories are, let alone what they should be called.

So, some food for thought.

• Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games analyzes Choose Your Own Adventure books and their descendants and identifies some common ways they branched.

• Patterns of Hypertext does something similar, but instead uses the literary hypertexts of the 1990s as its sources.

• Fun da mentals: Rhetorical Devices for Electronic Literature suggests some exercises to try to broaden your perspective on linking.