I chose to create the mapping of my CYOA book using a software program called "CmapTools." http://mason.gmu.edu/~bpierso2/houseofdanger.jpg is where it can be found. You can see what Cmap is capable of doing by looking at the image. The method I used to create this map was to start at page one and then go to where the pages told me to go. As I did this, I mapped it. When it came time to make a decision, I would map both possible pages I could go to and then pick one and keep on mapping the numbers. I chose to just use each bubble as a page number with a line connecting each one. The font I used was a standard size-12 font. When it came to the end of stories, I chose to enlarge the text to 18 and make it bold. It was easy to keep up with the forks in the roads while mapping this because as I go to the end of mapping one storyline, I would just go back up and find any Ys in the map that weren’t completed. My book was fortunately very easy to map because none of the pages met up with any of the other pages. I never had to use the same bubble more than once (never had to read the same page twice, basically) This made it very easy for me to map and I was able to just go straight through the book without having to back track or figure out which bubbles linked to which others. This is what a reader wouldn’t see without mapping it. I didn’t think about the fact that they didn’t meet up again with any other pages and I don’t think the casual reader would notice this either without mapping it.
The structure of interactive narrativity is difficult to come up with here because it is very straight forward and flowing. I would say that it is more like a tree that branches out. It isn’t exactly like the Marie-Laure Ryan’s example of "The Vector With Side Branches" though because there aren’t any side branches that this story ventures to. It is strictly from one thing to the next. I never had to go to the same page twice ever while mapping or reading the book. It is similar to the Vector With Side Branches because that narrative is described as "chronological." Because my story never hits back to any of the previous pages, you can argue that it also is chronological. From a standard reading sense, however, you can’t say that any of these CYOA books are chronological; they jump around a lot. I think what I’m trying to say is that my book basically shoots straight through a story and doesn’t go back. I can picture in my head as an arrow that just keeps on going. The page numbers don’t necessarily ascend in chronological order as you read, but it just seems that figuratively, you are going straight through since you will never see the same page twice while reading different story. I would say that another narrative that this book is similar to is The Tree. Ryan states that "once a branch has been taken, there is no possible return to the decision point." (Ryan – 248) This is pretty much what I’ve been saying about how each story keeps going, rather than goes back to other pages.
I’d have to making a CYOBA map I made was one of the more painful experiences for me as far as analysis. I went through all the possibilities manually. I kinda wish I had gone like sugested in class on Tuedayto map the book by going from page 1- to the end of the book page by page versus running all the possibilities. This would haved save me an some time. It took me about ~4 hours to make the initial map. However, I wouldn’t have had as much of an first hand deep feel for the possibilities like do now had i done it the other way. I had to resort to using dashed lines and color pencil to create the lines to keep myself from mixing lines up in the draft. I put an X on a circle/node to mark an ending. There were multiple endings in book. After I completed the initial map, I called it a night. However, I did end up with a pretty cool and crazy looking product as a map to look at.
Corrected version
I’d have to say making a CYOBA map was one of the more painful experiences for me as far as analysis. I went through all the possibilities manually. I kinda wish I had gone like sugested in class on Tuesday to map the book by going from page #1- to the end of the book page by page versus running all the possibilities. This would haved save me some time. It took me about ~4 hours to make the initial map. However, I wouldn’t have had as much of a first hand deep feel for the possibilities like do now had I done it the other way. I had to resort to using dashed lines and color pencils to create the lines to keep myself from mixing lines up in the draft. I put an X on a circle/node to mark an ending. There were multiple endings in book. After I completed the initial map, I called it a night. However, I did end up with a pretty cool and crazy looking product as a map to look at.