Text Menu

Ferris Wheels provides several entryways for the same content. The work has two site maps for the same sixteen nodes: a graphical interface showing the episodic location of the fabula, and a text interface which is a metapoem composed of the names of the nodes.

Site map as fabula

The map provides locations for the plot happenings--what is going on in the narrator's mind, which does not necessarily combine with where the couple are on the ferris wheel when the narrator is cogitating on that point. Where What We Will [66]uses a single anchor to show the action during various points of the day, Ferris Wheels uses a series of the same graphic to show the action during the Ferris Wheels ride. AfterImage's [7] month menu accomplishes something similar: a mapping of anchors to time sequence.

Screenshot used by permission.

Like The Pines at Walden Pond [39] and Sand Loves [38], Ferris Wheels uses a map on each node that highlights the position of the node in the overall structure of the work.

Site map as poem

This poem is meant to be read either clockwise or from the center out (turn forever, turn against tides, etc):

Screenshot used by permission

Back and forth navigation

Screenshot used by permission

Where In The Changing Room [8] offers a next button to go forward on a default reading, In Ferris Wheels, an old-fashioned right-pointing hand indicates a clockwise move in the hypertext structure and a left-pointing hand indicates a counter-clockwise move in the hypertext structure. This reading follows the revolving poem clockwise from center out (enter, deny, turn, reach, against tides, each other...) This navigational schema not only spurs the reader on to uncover relations between text and structure, but emphasizes both the carnival atmosphere and main question of the work. Thus the anchors become another content layer, providing another possible reading of the work.