Storify Assignment B: Electronic Literature the New Future - Diana Rhodes

Electronic Literature, what is it? 

Assignment B, By Diana Rhodes

My topic for inspiration came from Module 1: What is literature? I wanted to describe what Electronic Literature is, since when I explain to friends and family about our class - they had no idea of what I am learning. 

I had a hard time selecting a topic and how I should create something on storify. I am not much of a writer. I was having difficulty getting all my thoughts and searches on telling my story; from what I've learned these past weeks. Until, I saw the motivational tweet from our instructor: "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it." So here is my heart filled attempt to this assignment.

• How did you approach finding the different elements that you included in your Storify post?

I started in the beginning and wanted to answer the question "what is electronic literature?" from our readings in Module 1. I wanted to make my storify educational and short. My goal was to use graphics and videos to share my ideas on what this type of literature is and why it can never be in book form. Also, literature can be use various platforms to communicate with anyone with text, games, social media and graphics. The reader can do more than just read on electronic literature - they can interact.

• What keywords, hashtags, or other methods did you use to narrow or expand your search?

I searched with keywords: Electronic Literature, Interactive Fiction, Born Digital Fiction, Born Digital Text, Graphics, Music, video games, Inanimate Alice and Twitter fiction.  

To grabbed all the images from Google, Twitter, Gify, Flickr and web searches. I wanted to include tweets and animation to tell my story. I expanded my search to include books, brochures, stories to help with my storify.

I searched for the video on Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl. A Digital Fiction classic that I learned about in one of our readings.

• Why did you decide to include the elements you did?

I tried to select elements that are short and to the point. I didn't want to lose the readers attention with my storify, since from our past readings "Is Google is making us Stupid?" people are not reading, thier power browsing. I tried to put text in very short form to not get too fussy.

• What were the criteria you used in order to decide an element was worth including?

I wanted to answer the What, When, Where, Who, Why and How in my storify: 

1. The what - is describing Electronic Literature and what it can do to tell the story. I used images with graphics and video.
2. The when - a brief segment on Patchwork Girl and that it's started when internet became household. I added the video of Shelley Jackson.
3. The where - Some countries are using this in their educational curriculum. 
4. The who - can be accessed by anyone and that anybody can become an author if they like. They can contribute to Twitter Fiction. 
5. The why - by explaining the uses for educational and entertainment purposes. 
6. Lastly, how - by using elements like sound to set the mood, touch by interaction with the game, and visually by changing the text style and graphics.

Example is on my use of music and text in my post. How can you capture music? Could I have found musical notes? Maybe, instead I found a picture with records. Classic like literature, but cool like a DJ and just like an author, the DJ will try to get you to dance or feel something. With the text portion of my post, I found a post with design - I wanted to show text can be graphic and used in the design of the story.

• Do you think your post gives a "full picture" of your issue? Why or why not?

No, not really. I wanted to emphasize the future, the hybrid usage, how it all started and what it can be used for. There was so many search items, so many posts and pictures - I found it became a tad overwhelming. 

Electronic Literature is new and can be so vast, that it became frustrating at times to find what would best describe what it is all about. Hard to put it all in a "full picture", since it can be used in many areas and interpreted differently.

• Do you think you could use your Storify post as a starting point for writing a longer academic essay? If so, how? If not, why not?

Yes, I'm hoping my post could be a starting point on this subject. I actually removed other texts and pictures to try and keep it streamlined and not too lengthy. I could have emphasized more on educational benefits, accessibility for people with disabilities or reading difficulties, and on how organizations can use digital literature to tell their stories. I only briefly touched the topic of what it is Electronic Literature. There is so much more. 

Cross-Platform Stories

Cross-Platform Storytellers = Audience Architect + Story Architect

Posted on 06/17/2014 by Lara Hoefs

To create successful cross-platform story experiences, it’s important to understand there are two sides to the transmedia coin. Transmedia only begins at creating story across platforms; the other half is building a cohesive cross-platform audience experience. The two go hand in hand when building engaging, moving story experiences.

Several years ago, understanding that storytelling was evolving in a new media age, the visionary Lance Weiler made a shift in how he identified as a storyteller and he moved away from identifying as a filmmaker to that of a story architect.

“At one point I considered myself a film-maker but those days are long gone. I now consider myself something akin to a story architect, in the sense that the stories I tell encompass design, delivery and technology.” – Lance Weiler, 2009

As we build story experiences in this connected digital age, one side of creating story experiences is building story architecture and the other is building audience architecture. Like Lance Weiler, some storytellers are intuitively wired for 21st century storytelling and are able to simultaneously craft audience architecture within story architecture. Though many storytellers have not been trained to weave in the important element of audience engagement in building out story. That’s why many attempts at creating cross-platform (or transmedia) story experiences are unsuccessful. Creative talents who are amazing with story but have not been trained to build audience engagement into a story experience, would be wise to invite an audience architect to help guide them in building cross-platform audience strategies around their story world.

What does an Audience Architect do?

• Designs and builds a seamless, cohesive audience experience across platforms that intertwines with story
• Gets to know the audience via analysis of data, analytics and social behavioral patterns
• Creates audience strategies that informs the creation of intentional story experiences aimed to involve, inspire and move the audience, thus ultimately building increased story engagement
• Nurtures and grows the audience and story community throughout the life of the story experience
• Becomes the audience advocate that brings the voice of the audience to the table during development of story experiences

21st century storytelling requires new talents to support the creation of successful story experiences that engage, move and build audiences. A key new role that has emerged is the need for an audience architect who can build a cohesive cross-platform audience experience around a story world.

“The audience is telling us what they want, we just need to start listening.” – Lance Weiler, 2009

#EXSM3989 Students Reading their Character Descriptions

My #EXSM3989 students reading their awesome character descriptions! Check them out: https://t.co/9tof4dzptL pic.twitter.com/xlJkGYkXtT

— Jessica Laccetti (@JessL) December 1, 2015

My #EXSM3989 students reading their awesome character descriptions! Check them out: https://t.co/9tof4dzptL pic.twitter.com/kvaiLd3e7y

— Jessica Laccetti (@JessL) December 1, 2015

Close Reading Inanimate Alice Episode 5

This morning, after you have read Episode 5 of Inanimate Alice, you will work with a partner to fill in the following google doc. Each group will work on one of the three options (I'll tell you which).

Reading Inanimate Alice Episode 4

So you've read Inanimate Alice Episode 3 and now Episode 4. We talked about the role of different modes (that multimodality); the images, sounds, text, interaction etc and how that all works together to create a story or develop a sense of Alice.


Now that you’ve read Inanimate Alice Episode 4, think about the elements of a narrative and fill in the three column chart:


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wp15x-ufWTncHC6PRo-Lu2X8MhWC1MqiujJkBP-CtSE/edit?usp=sharing