Digital Fiction

Digital Fiction Angela Thomas 2007

Types of Digital Fiction
Flash Fiction
Webisodics / Filmic Fiction
Youtube Fiction
Blog Fiction
Flickr Fiction
Mobile Phone Fiction
SMS fiction
Fan Fiction
Distributed Narratives
Cross Media Narratives
Interactive Fiction
Machinima
ARGs
MMORPG role-playing
Twitter micro-fiction
6 word micro-narratives
Wiki novels
And more…

Affordances of Digital Fiction
Multimodality
Multiliteracies
Hypertext
Spatiality
Interactivity
Web 2.0 Audience
Cross Mediality
The Power of Fandom
Identity
Construction

We’ve seen a shift from a focus on linguistics to a focus on semiotics in new and newly valued forms of literature. Digital fiction integrates the visual, verbal and acoustic semiotic resources to construct meaning.

Multimodality
text
animated text (scrolling)
still image
video
sound effects
music
audio (phone messages, voiceovers, laughter)

Hypertext
Links pass through and over the semantic space

cognitive work required for reading hyperlinks
assemblage of texts or ‘bits’ of text
gaps / a severing of the text
the reader must make inferences to make sense of the link-bridged gap
shifting positions, new ideas, evolving re-orientations, perspectives and directions of thought

Spatiality

Video Podcasts

Mobile Phone Fiction

Each week ends with a dilemma, inviting the audience to vote on what happens next. The production team then write, shoot and edit the follow-up over the weekend.

Webcam
Emails
Text messages
Boyfriend
Friends
Teacher
Astronomy notes taken in class
Postcards, photos with captions
Links to science websites
Direct address to reader

Interactivity: the role of the reader
views, listens, reads words, clicks
chooses own reading path
chooses whether or not to click hypertext for additional information
ASSEMBLES the story from its component pieces, filling in gaps

the nature of the internet allows a new level of interactivity on the part of the reader, from simply navigation and shaping of the text, to participating in the text as a reader/writer/composer/actor

The Wiki Novel

Commenting feature of social networking applications allows reader interactivity that may in turn shape writer’s response
Writer response theories

After an afternoon of art at the art institute, we headed back to the 'L' station to go home. We passed by the Daley plaza on the way where they were having some sort of outdoor market. This is in front of the famous Chicago Picasso sculpture...

SMS Text Poetry
ODE 2 MY BIKE Oh bike so beauTful & pink U transport me all over the cT If only I could Make people C Your spindly metallic beauT

Twitter Micro-Fiction poetic narratives in 140 characters or less Learning to whistle at 8 years old was the first time she realized the possibility of making something beautiful from nothing but herself. His dreams were like transparent action movies, all blazing guns and screaming. The nursing home always looked dimmer when he woke from one Half a million refugees packed into tents. Stories so harrowing he had run out of tears. These people had witnessed humanity's darkest side.

Six words – the miniLegends Eating, stop, choke, go, to, hospital. Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Night. Fifty dollars:Blue dog, eats lots The day the world blew up! It is a secret. What secret? i like playing soccer on saturday ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ (Year 3 Glenelg School, Adelaide, South Australia) teacher - Al Upton

Tell a Story in Five Frames – Flickr Fiction What a great story for the summer. I really love the look on the little boys face in the last shot. It's exactly how I feel when I take a bite of a really sweet watermelon.

Machinima: machine cinema

Younger kids are using machinima to create their own experimental digital narratives
“ I was a teenage machinima maker”
Once I discovered machinima, it became so much more exciting for me to create my own characters and stories than to simply play the game within the confines of the designer's original creative vision. Now I am able to mold the game to reflect my own imagination
Harrison Heller, in the US magazine Variety on July 23rd, 2006.

Nathan Burns Grade 6, Princes Hill Primary School original poem

Transmediality: A world of versions
Texts are often now occurring across multiple platforms, which we call “cross-media entertainment” or “trans-media intertextuality”

ARGs: Alternate Reality Games
Storytelling as archaeology.
Platformless narrative.
Designing for a hive mind.
A whisper is sometimes louder than a shout.
The "this is not a game" (TINAG) aesthetic.
Real life as a medium.
Not a hoax.

LAMP (Lab of advanced media productions) ARGS

Some digital fiction which requires high levels of interactivity also offers opportunities for identity play

Tiana: Tiana
Tiana is my biggest character, as I role-play with her and write with her voice the most, so she's the most like me.
I've kind of fused Tiana into my internet identity completely. Her looks and all that, not to mention personality.
Tiana's a bit more headstrong than I am. She's more willing to jump into things.
However, she's almost other than that completely like me. does/says is what I'd do and say.

The Power of Fandom

“ My Alter Egos” Jumphawk

Second Life: role-playing, ARGs, machinima, twittering, blog fiction, fandom, poetry, SLiterary fiction… a space rich for narrative, creativity and collaborative co-construction of texts

Angela A Thomas
http://angelaathomas.com
[email_address]

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Digital Fiction

by Angela Thomas on Sep 03, 2007

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