To me, storytelling has at least a beginning and an end. I associate picture books the best with storytelling. You know, a book like Strega Nona or the Giving Tree. I really still enjoy the message these books give to this day. I was always really bad in high school about identifying the five elements of storytelling: the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. It wasn’t until I had a teacher that had us all read a book that didn’t really have any of those elements that I realized storytelling is really up to the author. Kind of like beauty, storytelling is in the eye of the beholder.

The digital story, at least for me, is different in several ways. One, and most important, it can be viewed best on the web. There is a certain fluidity and conversational quality to it that static storybooks lack. The digital story is often more dynamic, simply because more can be done in the digital sphere. For example, if making a story of gifs, it would be impossible to view in storybook form. However, in the digital world, it would be no problem to have gif after gif telling a story. Also, because I’m really bad at traditional art (think stick figures), I am more partial to creating things on the internet and using them.