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This is something I've been considering for a while and have started to use now and again as an experiment.

Linking is something that is new (relatively) to writing, it's a new form of canvas we have only started painting on. It exists outside of E2 but Everything being based purely on the word and the meanings between words it exists very strongly here.

People on E2 regularly use links to emphasise something these days. This is a change in writing style brought about by E2. Some have taken this further. They hide the meaning of the words in the hard links, the links pointing not to the words you would expect but to different write ups, to other words or phrases.

Goth chat-up lines by Em is an example of the first sort. Many of the links in this piece point to other nodes, nodes which either explain more deeply the object of the link or are humorous in the context of the current node.

In I left you a note and you replied to it I use a similar technique. Not necessarily pointing to other nodes for their meanings to be brought on board, but to hide phrases or words in amongst the text. To bring out a different meaning, the implied meaning of the text.

Writers have, in a sense, been doing this for some time. Porn in Hamlet shows how Shakespeare played on words, the meaning two-fold, leaving the audience to decide the real meaning of what he was saying. With linking we can take this a step further, we have the chance to hide multiple word plays inside the text. This, in effect, makes the text only truly readable on the internet. But this is our medium. With a new canvas and new materials it is possible, but not wholly desirable, to paint in the same style as has gone before.

It's not something that I am totally certain of the value of, it may be a distraction to the reader. My normal style of writing is very direct, little hidden meaning, few references that the reader must know to truly understand. In saying that, though, it offers up a whole new style of creative writing. It may be in the future that such linking will come into it's own. Imagine a mouse cursor that brought up other related words as you floated it across the text, or perhaps in the near future, a screen which morphed words into others as your eyes hovered for a second longer than normal over the phrases in a poem.
