Synthesis and Contour

To say that hypertexts are dialectical implies that their nature may admit of a synthesis, some plane or aspect in which the play of opposing forces is harmonized or balanced. Is there some element of hypertexts, or of reading and writing hypertexts, which reconciles the stable sequentiality of the lexia and the unstable randomness of the links? Joyce proposes to understand hypertext in terms of the contour, a virtual representation of the reader's experience of the hypertext as it unfolds in time. The contour is not "non-sequential" at all, since it articulates the connectedness or "coextensivity" of the text; in fact, like syntax, the contour is entirely time-dependent. But neither is the contour sequential in the exclusionary sense of older coherence structures (cadence, plot, argument). The contour does not exclude possibilities; it remains contingent as the reader moves back and forth through the text, revealing or realizing new connections. The contour unfolds through a process of replacement (Joyce 1992).

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