Web 2.0 storytelling principles

Web 2.0 Storytelling: Principles ELI Annual Conference January 28, 2008 Bryan 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?

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)

Digital Storytelling’s 7 principles
Point of view
Dramatic question
Emotional content
Voice (style)
Soundtrack (and other media)
Economy
Pacing
“ Digital Storytelling Cookbook”

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

Space
Accretion
Linear
Rhizomatic
Subtraction
Deletion (wiki, comment)
Link rot

Character
You: persona
Creative or historical character
Blog as character (Kathleen Fitzpatrick)
Twitter as character (Eric Rice)

Setting
Sometimes ambient
Or use linked services (maps)

Triangular desire (Rene Girard, Eve Sedgwick)
Connections between characters
Watch for connections between audience members
Check platform and aura

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.)

New practices emerging: breaking the fourth wall
driven by social nature, and beta nature
Rely on ST Coleridge

New practices emerging: hoax
She's a Flight Risk http://esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030922_mfe_isabella_1.html
Conservapedia?
lonelygirl15

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.
First will come the Rosens and egostorytelling.
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

Web 2.0 storytelling principles

by Bryan Alexander

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