What is an ELM (Apart from a Tree)?
ELM stands for Electronic Literary Macramé, according to Dana Paxson. It appears to be a term coined by this author for the format he has developed. Electronic novels are not, as we know, totally new to the world. Only recently this blog covered another format in the Wovel (web novel) – a serial format published electronically onto a website, and before that, a format called a Visual Novel, which is a graphical novel including text and graphics, and a partially interactive nature as it has a few threads to choose from. I’m personally not sure if the “ELM” term will ever catch on, but perhaps novels in an html and scripted format such as Descending Road do have a real future, especially given the additional tools and resources such novels can provide for the storyline itself. Using html and javascripting, the ELM novel allows for numerous text linking, the inclusion of side glossaries, and images, aside background text, reference links, footnotes and endnotes, and in the case of Descend
