When I sit down to read something, especially works of fiction, I go into that reading with certain expectations: there will be a conflict, a climax and an ending of some sort. My curiosity leads me often to dive deep into the story, to be engrossed by the plot and excited by the conflict that the story has presented me. Hypertext stories, like afternoon, a story, lead me to grasp the very nature of the story, further outlined by Aarseth. Since I am an addict of shallow, action-packed books, I tend to dive into different authors and book styles then, say, a romance novel addict. Following the structure (or lack thereof) of afternoon, a story, an author can cater the story to my needs. Given a conflict, say, the fate of the world, I can choose how I would solve the issue, and I would therefore create my own ending according to how the author wanted given path to end. But even that shows the limitations of hypertext in this way. It is my curiosity that drives me to read, and it is my curiosity that makes me want to go back and try the peaceful way to save the world, just to see how it turns out. In this way, there are currently limitations on how much a story can really change. If an author only gives two branches to the given story, the text itself is limited to the choice that separates the two paths.
I can imagine (and I’m sure that this has been done) that a paper book came to the moment of decision where one choice was made, yet somehow turned the reader back to the moment of decision in order to explore the other choice, be it through a time machine or whatever literary device. So what is the difference between this situation and a simplified version of a non-linear story? In my opinion the limitations are only how far and how many branches the reading and author are willing to go.
When I read after, a story, I quickly picked up on the function of clicking individual words to link me to different pages. I soon after started to hate the function itself. The worded links put me into a circle of gibberish that frustrated me rather than excited me. The description of the story said that the pages should have been different and that I had to find the clues to complete the story. However, I did not start reading the story so I could solve a puzzle, and as soon as it appeared thus, I satisfied my (now diminished) lust for answers simply by pressing the return button.
Hypertext, non linear stories have mass potential no doubt. But at this point I cannot stress enough that a balance between branching out the story and keeping the story readable needs to be found. Who knows, though? Maybe the story-puzzle genre of electronic text will take off.
I, on the other hand, will choose to puzzle my way to find the next Tom Clancy knockoff in the bookstore and enjoy a paperback copy in a nice comfy chair.