The British writer BS Johnson (1933-1973) used a number of imaginative writing techniques. These included using pages from an accounts ledger to help tell the story in 'Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry', having windows cut out of pages in 'Albert Angelo' and writing the same story from nine different viewpoints in 'House Mother Normal'. All of these, he performed in addition to frequently using non-standard text layouts. One of his most memorable techniques can be found in 'The Unfortunates'. This book comes in a box and consists of a series of unbound sections of which only the first and last need be read in sequence. The other sections can be read in any order without losing the point of the book.
Johnson took his own life in 1973 and so did not live to see the resonances that exist between what he was doing on the page with what can now be done using browser-based reading. The absence of a prescribed reading sequence in 'The Unfortunates' resonates to some extent with the notion of associative trails suggested by Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) and perhaps with Ted Nelson's idea of transclusion.
Associative Trails
In essence, Vannevar Bush's notion of associative trails refers to a means whereby the reader creates his or her own sequence or pathway through a set of information and does not follow a route prescribed by the author.
In such a scenario, one might look through, say, a dozen pages of information. Of these, one may be interested in just five of those pages – the second, fourth, seventh, eighth and tenth viewed, for example. One need not read these pages right away but want to come back to them later. When one does, one might want to read them in a different order, say the eighth, seventh, tenth, second and fourth previously viewed. By so doing, one is choosing the order in which one needs to understand the information available so as to make best sense of it.
Although he allowed for an almost arbitrary reading sequence, the resonance with BS Johnson's 'The Unfortunates' lies in the control the reader has over the sequence in which the piece is read as a whole.
As such this aspect of hypertext does not seem to have been widely implemented, so far. Readers do not select blocks of text to be read or the sequence in which they are read except in the usual sense of researching or skimming through items of information.
Transclusion
Transclusion is the inclusion of a part of one document in another by reference rather than by copying and pasting. In this way, only one copy of the transcluded document exists even though it may be relevant to numerous documents and be seen in multiple contexts. This approach has the advantage that changes to a transcluded document are simultaneously reflected in all documents that use it.
I know of one academic paper where, after a period of reflection, the author decided to swap the labels on the two axes of the graph that depicted his central thesis. I only know this because that author was kind enough to send me some reprints of his work and conscientiously pointed out the amendment he proposed. I am unaware that this change in his thinking has ever appeared in print and writers are still, in fact, referring back to his central thesis as originally – and erroneously (if that is the right word) – depicted. With a transcluded figure, this change and an accompanying note could have been made to one file and all those referring back to that figure would be immediately made aware of the writer's change in thinking.
The transclusion process works better when sections of text are self-contained. In this way the text and its meaning is context neutral. References to what was described 'above' or what will be addressed 'below' cannot therefore be used in this form of writing. Indeed, the very notion of 'above' and 'below' changes. Hyperlinks taking the reader directly to such sections are available instead.
Again, this aspect of hypertext does not seem to have been widely implemented - if at all. I know of no documents which, for purposes of providing information, are composed of transcluded elements. (However, form letters composed of stock paragraphs drawn together in different ways are an entirely different matter.)