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Web 2.0 storytelling principles
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Web 2.0 Storytellin
g:Principles
ELI Annual Conference
January 28, 2008Bryan Alexander,
NITLE
Non-digital roots
• Epistolary novels• Victorian serials• Pulp serials• Radio• Soaps
(Dickens, Bleak House installment,PBS site)
Practices and principles
How to start• Idea germ - maybe a character, a
concept to explain• What audience?• Which platform tends to lead to the
kind of results you’d prefer?
Practices and principles
How to start: preparation• Lessons from ARGs
– Preload lots of material before release– Art of lack of control
• Basic PM– Build in risk control– Timeline (maybe milestones, maybe
gates)
Practices and principles
Digital Storytelling’s 7 principles1. Point of view2. Dramatic question3. Emotional content4. Voice (style)5. Soundtrack (and other media)6. Economy7. Pacing
“Digital Storytelling Cookbook”
Practices and principles
Time• Wilkie
Collins: "Make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em wait"
• keep it coming (cf ask a Ninja)
• Big time: serial
• Little time: accretive
• No time: archiving
Practices and principles
Space• Accretion
–Linear–Rhizomatic
• Subtraction–Deletion (wiki, comment)
–Link rot
Practices and principles
Character• You: persona• Creative or historical character• Blog as character (Kathleen
Fitzpatrick)• Twitter as character (Eric Rice)
Practices and principles
Setting
• Sometimes ambient
• Or use linked services (maps)
Practices and principles
Triangular desire (Rene Girard, Eve Sedgwick)
• Connections between characters • Watch for connections between
audience members– Check platform and aura
Practices and principles
Fab your lexia chunks
• Recap/summary of story
• Cliffhanger • Internal organizing
statement• Discrete argument
point
Shift in Lego pieces• POV• Timeline• Embedded story• Meta, help,
disclaimer
(And they move without you.)
Practices and principles
New practices emerging: breaking the fourth wall– driven by social nature, and beta nature– Rely on ST Coleridge
Practices and principles
New practices emerging: hoax
• She's a Flight Risk http://esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030922_mfe_isabella_1.html
• Conservapedia?
• lonelygirl15
Practices and principles
New practices emerging: ARG (http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/)
-ARG.edu
Futures
• Web 2.0 story content might privilege mysteries, since there needs to be a hook to drive readers from piece to distributed piece. Note, for instance, the predominance of mysteries in alternate reality games.
Futures
• Web 2.0 stories are likely to focus on time as a major structural element. – smaller Web 2.0 stories which don't do
this– are Web 2.0 stories always in beta?
Futures
Stories about Web 2.0 storytelling
• Alex Payne, “They Stopped Calling It Rendezvous” (2005)
Futures
Await the backlash.1. First will come the Rosens and
egostorytelling.2. Next will be the scary Web update:
news media, marketing.
Futures
• Quality– Some are lame– Emerging standards, aesthetics?– Reputation as a whole
Futures
Could Web 2.0 storytelling be a minor literature?
• Eastgate hypertext• MUDs, MOOs• IFiction
Futures
Or could it be a transition stage to new things?
• Eastgate hypertext ->WorldWideWeb
• MUDs, MOOs -> Croquet, Second Life
• IFiction -> gaming
Caveats
•Project versus piece versus principle
•Framework is not your project
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
-blog commentators Andy Havens, Steve Kaye, H Pierce, D'Arcy
Norman
-Alan Levine!
-all Web 2.0 storytellers and participants
National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE)
http://nitle.org
http://b2e.nitle.org