Web 2.0 storytelling principles

Slide 1: Web 2.0 Storytelling: Principles ELI Annual Conference January 28, 2008 Bryan Alexander, NITLE

Slide 2: Non-digital roots • Epistolary novels • Victorian serials • Pulp serials • Radio • Soaps (Dickens, Bleak House installment, PBS site)

Slide 3: 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?

Slide 4: 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)

Slide 5: Practices and principles Digital Storytelling’s 7 principles 2. Point of view 3. Dramatic question 4. Emotional content 5. Voice (style) 6. Soundtrack (and other media) 7. Economy 8. Pacing “Digital Storytelling Cookbook”

Slide 6: Practices and principles Time • Wilkie Collins: • Big time: \"Make 'em cry, serial make 'em laugh, make 'em wait\" • Little time: • keep it coming accretive (cf ask a Ninja) • No time: archiving

Slide 7: Practices and principles Space • Subtraction • Accretion – Deletion (wiki, – Linear comment) – Rhizomatic – Link rot

Slide 8: Practices and principles Character • You: persona • Creative or historical character • Blog as character (Kathleen Fitzpatrick) • Twitter as character (Eric Rice)

Slide 9: Practices and principles Setting • Sometimes ambient • Or use linked services (maps)

Slide 10: Practices and principles Triangular desire (Rene Girard, Eve Sedgwick) • Connections between characters • Watch for connections between audience members – Check platform and aura

Slide 11: Practices and principles Fab your lexia chunks Shift in Lego pieces • Recap/summary of story • POV • Cliffhanger • Timeline • Internal organizing • Embedded story statement • Meta, help, disclaimer • Discrete argument point (And they move without you.)

Slide 12: Practices and principles New practices emerging: breaking the fourth wall – driven by social nature, and beta nature – Rely on ST Coleridge

Slide 13: Practices and principles New practices emerging: hoax • She's a Flight Risk http://esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030922_mfe_isabe • Conservapedia? • lonelygirl15

Slide 14: Practices and principles New practices emerging: ARG ( http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/) -ARG.edu

Slide 15: 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.

Slide 16: 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?

Slide 17: Futures Stories about Web 2.0 storytelling • Alex Payne, “They Stopped Calling It Rendezvous” (2005)

Slide 18: Futures Await the backlash. 2. First will come the Rosens and egostorytelling. 3. Next will be the scary Web update: news media, marketing.

Slide 19: Futures • Quality – Some are lame – Emerging standards, aesthetics? – Reputation as a whole

Slide 20: Futures Could Web 2.0 storytelling be a minor literature? • Eastgate hypertext • MUDs, MOOs • IFiction

Slide 21: Futures Or could it be a transition stage to new things? • Eastgate hypertext -> WorldWideWeb • MUDs, MOOs -> Croquet, Second Life • IFiction -> gaming

Slide 22: Caveats • Project versus piece versus principle • Framework is not your project

Slide 23: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -blog commentators Andy Havens, Steve Kaye, H Pierce, D'Arcy Norman -Alan Levine! -all Web 2.0 storytellers and participants

Slide 24: National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) http://nitle.org http://b2e.nitle.org