register

Extended narratives in electronic literature often take place in a "setting" or series of landscapes that might be real or imaginary. In my work, I have often chosen a template from a "real" landscape (California, Egypt) as not only a narrative story feature but also as a part of the navigation system. In *Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day* the reader is encouraged to become familiar with a "screen" landscape that is schematic map, navigation tool and "register" for multiple points of view. In order to "map" these fields, the early reader is introduced to areas of the screen which recall the conventional organization of ancient tomb paintings and manuscripts and also correspond to land, river, and sky. Each of these areas is also linked to aspects of the narrative voice. Thus, the imaginary landscape is mapped in the storyline, the screen organization, and the navigation.