Structure of Frangles -- Basics

FRANGLES FOR DUMMIES

1/19/10: Please note: we've announced on the updates page that the Frangles page structure will be cut to 1/7 of its size, but have not yet made any changes on the site to reflect this decision, including none on this page or section. You may ignore the announcement entirely until we execute it, which may or may not be procrastinated indefinitely. The biggest consequence is that the page numbering system will be 5 digits instead of 6, so eventually a page labeled 123.456 will be labeled just 12.456, so just be vaguely aware of this.

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A lot of the journey of Frangles is following its evolution. You're not just reading a saga, you're reading an entirely new type of medium never attempted in the history of the only known sentient race to ever exist since the dawn of the observable known universe (or something like that). Or at least a magnitude never attempted, seeing how Frangles resembles the old children's Choose Your Own Adventure series which had first dibs. Hence on top of Frangles' confusing ass web of intertangled plots and characters, there's a higher level story (though perhaps a more boring one): the writing of Frangles. Not the story Skip writes in Writer's Bricks--or any other similar work of art involved in Frangles' fictional prose--but rather the story of Skip and all the other Frangles characters that you're reading here, written by the real real world people--or person, or alien, or AIM bot network; we still haven't told you for sure who writes this !@#$--here on your little blue-green planet called Earth orbiting the star system Sol. We're the real real life friters, and you're the real real life freers, and our collective real real life story is as good as anyone's!

Hence, at least for now, the explanation of what Frangles is and how it works will be slowly revealed and elaborated on as it evolves through dated updates rather than continuously revised pages. This avoids the annoyance of checking back to confusing inconsistencies, and also allows you the most in-depth understanding of what Frangles is and how it works, because where it came from is a lot of that story. Though don't worry, the key need-to-knows will always be explained somewhere, whether on this page, or in the 'about' page, or in an explanation of a particular book, etc, etc. Note that since the fiction and structure of Xangles, Frangles, & Blorkk are uniquely nonlinear, so must the websites presenting it be. You need not read everything (i.e. all the updates in order) to get the idea of Frangles; you can just explore the site at random, and it will make more and more sense as you go. (Or at the least, confuse you more and more, but that's your problem.) Just as fractal fragments contain tiny key blueprints of a much larger fractal (and then a larger, etc), just reading a few pages of Frangles here or there can give you the keys to its over all workings.

However, if you simply must have a quickie nutshell (you impatient !@#$%), then know this: Frangles is a saga of a whole big bunch of books, all interconnected in a careful, complex pattern, but not one you need understand in order to read each book normally as you would any other book. You may pick up on some of that complexity as you read, but even if you don't, you simply get the experience of reading any normal book.

Consider J.R.R. Tolkien. Some people consider Lord of the Rings to be a work intentionally written with complex ethical themes in mind of good and evil and life and death, its characters and events intentionally layered with subtle hidden metaphors and symbolism. Tolkien himself thought this was overanalysis. He once commented on this type of analysis. He told them, it's only a story! Perhaps any story could be analyzed to death by those seeing vast complexities in them, but they're not necessarily written or read that way. Each Frangles story or book that we present as having a "radically complex fractal nonlinear structure" could just as well be a plain old novel sitting on a shelf with no one to bother seeing those complexities. Hence, if the way in which Frangles is presented can be intimidating, just don't bother with all that! =)

Bottom line, to read Frangles easily, simply surf around and click the first page or chapter or whatever of a story, and read onward. Or just click around randomly! That's all you need, so read no further!

SOME FURTHER BASICS

A few key to things to note about Frangles. Firstly, except for some scattered posted chapters (which will later be reformatted), the page structure of Frangles are labeled with with six digits. The first three represent the book number, and the second three represent the page number, and each digit goes from 1 to 7. For instance, the pages of the book Writer's Bricks (book #131), go up like this:

131,111
131,112
131,113
131,114
131,115
131,116
131,117
131,121
131,122
131,123
131,124
(..etc..)

So the last page would be 131,777.   If this is still contusing, just click "Next" at the bottom of every page and you'll be fine! [Frangles is like a computer (or will be once it really gets going): you can use it's surface functions (email or play a video game), but if you want to get more involved (like one might study computer or software engineering), you can do that too.]

Secondly, there are a few super-key Frangles terms you should know, as follows:

    fractal: A type of self-similar image (see Wikipedia and pics)
    frangle: A point of view (a certain take or angle)
    freer: Frangles reader (or fractal reader)
    friter: Frangles writer (or fractal writer)
    frwoa: Any type of work of art, especially one involving fractals
    Okuaka: Name of the known universe
[You can look up any others you come across this index of terms.]

Thirdly, Frangles is the first "Xangles" saga, i.e. Xangles saga #1, so you might come across the term "Xangles" now and then. You don't need to know anything about Xangles to read Frangles, but of course you can explore Xangles if you want. You can also read some of Xangles saga #2: Blorkk: The Second Known Universe, which crosses over somewhat in terms of style and terminology and material. The one thing that crosses over significantly between the sagas is the full Xangles Index of Terms, which you can use simply to look up any Frangles term without worrying about the others.

Fourthly, Frangles covers the time line from the big bang to the big crunch of our known universe (also called "Okuaka"). This also conveniently lines up with the evolution of man. In Frangles, human life begins around the big bang in a sort of vague intangible dream-like form, and progresses onward where the idea of physical matter is thought up, until it it's a pretty solid concept by the time of present day Earth. Then physical science evolves to the higher technology of the future, and then onward, so advanced to seem like magic, and then even that evolves further to the point where science has become *so* infinitely advanced as to come full circle at the end of Okuaka, imagining that zero technology and infinite technology are sorta the same thing.

The seven ages of Okuaka go as follows:

     Flutonia (1): A strange dream-like place at the dawn of the known universe (the first age of Okuaka)
   Earth (2): YOU ARE HERE: Around the second age of the known universe.
   Flurth (3): The Not-too-distant future (essentially a big generic sci-fi parody)
   Florbb(4): The peak of the sciences of Okuaka, when the evolution of science will finally stop seeming like a corporeal, physical concept and become so advanced as to begin seeming magical and mystical again.
   Kroffonia(5): Sci-fi/fantasy (the next step)
    Generika(6): Generic fantasy parody
    Zeroa(7): When vague thought has finally progressed from science to super-science to magic and back to the vagueness of pure, knowledgeable thought and memories.

Lastly, while reading, note that some of the terms and styles of Frangles can be a bit confusing. Part of this is our fault for not introducing and defining every particular idea or concept precisely where it should be introduced. We just ask a little forgiveness and patience in these areas, as Frangles writers ("friters") are writing while taking into account zillions of things behind your back regarding the entire universe of Frangles of which only a smidgen is currently posted; intertwining concepts, themes, character and plot structures, exponential permutations of reading paths, good precedents for establishing an entirely new art medium never worked through before, blah blah blah blah...
We constantly joke that we could easily be giving you bull@!# excuses for being lazy unproductive writers, but in all seriousness (for one single moment in history), we really *are* taking that baffling nightmare of complexity into account, which is especially difficult as we're inventing a new *type* of writing that has never been done before, and which is, of course, ALL OUR PROBLEM!

The rest of what might be confusing is as unavoidable as diving into *any* new major style or genre of art, such as reading a modern poem for the first time, or watching your first episode of Star Trek or Seinfeld or Blue's Clues. Of course, there's no way around that, but fortunately for us, there's not any precise way for you to tell what's just new and what's just lazy, so pbpbbl=P on that one!

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So those are the basics of the structure of Frangles. Of course, If you do want to dive in to the complexities of Frangles' concept (which should greatly evolve as time goes on), just keep reading here or follow the updates page for a mighty story indeed: the evolution of an entirely new type of medium never attempted in the history of the only known sentient race to ever exist since the dawn of the observable known universe (or something like that).