Writing for new media
Subtitle: the essential guide to writing for interactive media, CD-ROMs, and the Web
By: Andrew Bonime, Ken C. Pohlmann.
Contributors: Pohlmann, Ken C.
Publisher: J. Wiley
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 230
Subjects: Interactive multimedia -- Authorship.; CD-ROMs.; World Wide Web.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: 1. What Is Interactivity? Everyday Interactivity -- Interactive TV-- Are books and magazines interactive? -- Interactivity and the new media -- Books : pros and cons -- 2. Books and Ebooks. From books to bits -- The elements of interactivity and ebooks -- 3. Intrinsic interactivity : some media are already interactive -- A solution in search of a problem -- How interactivity stems from content -- Examples of media that can benefit from interactivity -- 4. Linear writing versus interactive writing -- Hypertext and hypermedia: a web, not a chain -- Hypertext and hypermedia in action -- The world wide brain -- Difficulties of hypertext writing -- Examples of interactivity -- 5. The role of the writer in interactive media. The team -- The writer and interactive media -- Have word processing program, will travel -- Love my book, love me -- We love your idea : let's meet, and bring your agent -- Legal rights -- 6. How to think interactively. Free association training --  Taming the wandering mind -- 7. How to choose interactive content. When ebooks don't work -- When ebooks do work -- Does MIT have the answer? -- 8. How to plan and present an interactive title idea. Phase I : planning an interactive title -- Phase II : the presentation : how to present your title to a developer or publisher -- Phase III : how to plan to write a title -- 9. Tools to help develop your ideas and plan the title -- Flowcharting software -- Word processing programs -- Drawing and painting programs -- Interactive authoring programs -- Presentation programs -- Programming languages -- Programs to help the writer stay organized -- 10. Planning for interactivity in a linear title -- 11. The grammar of interactivity. Cinematic grammar -- Interactive nouns and verbs -- The elements of interactive grammar -- More to come -- 12. The User's Grammar. Point -- Click -- Double click -- Right mouse button click -- Select -- Drag and drop -- Keying in -- Scrolling -- 13. The writer's grammar. Discoverability -- Rollovers -- Pop-up boxes -- Buttons -- Radio buttons -- Icons -- Menus -- Drop-down fields -- 14. Interactive sentences : designing the perfect data chunk -- The rules of the interactive road -- Keep it short -- Keep it self-contained -- Think multimedia -- Use creative interactivity --  think sidebars -- Integrate footnotes, bibliographies, and supporting material --  Determine levels of information modification -- Use screen metaphors carefully -- 15. Understanding how interactivity affects user comprehension and retention -- Now that you ask -- A matter of levels -- Field day for control freaks -- 16. Computer versus television screen. The venue is the message -- Web TV and CD-ROM TV -- 17. Story branching. Choose your own adventure -- Interactivity and free will -- Interactivity should not be a crutch -- Unreality and natural choices -- Offering the reader several choices -- Multiple beginnings, middles, and endings -- Plot complexity and chaos theory -- 18. Involving the reader/user : using the second person. Second person interactive -- Who's on second? -- Problems with the second person -- 19. Being creative : enriching the title. See the book, read the movie -- Interactive novels -- Interactive movies -- Hybrids -- Nonnarrative stories -- Pitfalls -- 20. In and out of the system. Printing -- Copying -- Annotation -- 21. CD-ROM versus online. A tale of two paradigms -- Bandwidth : the diameter of the pipe -- Television versus print -- The online revolution --  Money, money, money -- How to write for online -- Selecting online content -- CD-ROM lives! -- Online evolves -- 22. Issues for Writers on the World Wide Web. Untangling the world wide web -- URLs and home pages -- The grammar of the home page -- Layout -- Web journalism -- Content automation -- Searching -- Proactive agents and web spiders --  The web marches on -- CD-ROM/Web Hybrids -- Losing the reader on the world wide web -- The web gets pushy -- 23. Very basically, how does all this work? -- 1 + 0 = 1 -- No guts, no glory -- Memory -- Storage devices -- Compact disc format -- DVD format -- User I/O and peripherals -- Audio -- Video -- Modems and beyond -- Nothing but net -- The OS/browser wars.