Welcome to this blog

Welcome to this blog

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
August 27, 2013

Thank you for stopping by. This is the archived blog in support of The New Digital Storytelling. For a couple of years I used this to share digital stories and to explore these new narrative forms. I’m no longer updating the … Continue reading →
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Seattle Noir: storytelling by Twitter

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
February 7, 2013

Seattle Noir is another Twitter-based storytelling project. Microstorytelling, really, as each bit of story consists of a single Tweet. Said Tweets combine noir fiction (plot and/or style) with life in Seattle, flagged by the hashtag #SeattleNoir. For example, Or: Twitter … Continue reading →
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Long-form journalism meets digital storytelling

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
December 20, 2012

“Snow Fall” is a fascinating experiment. It’s the story of an avalanche in the American northwest. That story appears in text format, along the lines of long-form journalism. But “Snow Fall” also includes well done, nicely selected multimedia, including a 3d … Continue reading →
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New interactive fiction

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
November 14, 2012

“howling dogs” is a splendid new piece of interactive fiction. The plot concerns a person charged with visualizing certain scenes. I phrase this in such a vague, cold way in order to save you the pleasure of exploring its unsettling … Continue reading →
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On Cowbird

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
October 23, 2012

Transom has a nice piece explaining Cowbird. It’s a good introduction. The article also gives us a good sense of how far Cowbird has come. Now it has a library. Now it’s a multimedia storytelling first-step tool.
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Writing revolutions

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
October 15, 2012

“First Draft of the Revolution” is a Flash-based epistolary story. The reader/player helps letter-writers revise drafts. Each page develops the story: (via MetaFilter)
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Digital storytelling in Vermont

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
August 30, 2012

Two Middlebury College students used digital storytelling tools to explore central Vermont. Here’s a sample, their discussion with a dairy farmer. This was one project from Peter Lourie‘s series of adventure writing classes.
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Small town noir or Gothic?

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
August 14, 2012

Alan Levine offers this microtale of American Gothic, “A Model City“, using the Cowbird digital storytelling service. Look at how neat the mayor’s house is, with the shiny brick facade and the rows of roses down the path. Out in … Continue reading →
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Celebrating cliffhangers

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
July 23, 2012

Emily Nussbaum sings the praises of cliffhanger narratives, from early film serials to tv soaps. It’s a celebration of the segmented form (which I touch on in chapters 3+5). Nice observation on cliffhangers in digital media: In the digital age, … Continue reading →
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Choose your own adventure deaths

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
July 11, 2012

One of the key components to a Choose Your Own Adventure book is the series of death pages. (If you haven’t played/read one, these are pages to which you turn when selecting a seemingly nonlethal choice.) One helpful blogger has … Continue reading →
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Mad Twitter story of the year

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
July 3, 2012

Weirdest Twitter story: a madman wrote a fanfiction epic based on Harry and the Hendersons (1987). It is very odd. “Hi, I continue the saga of Harry and the Herndersons. Also have head injure.” [A]fter Harlod leaves the Hendersons—or what’s … Continue reading →
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Twittering Jane Austen

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
June 21, 2012

Can we Twitter a novel? The Jane Austen fan production A Ball at Pemberley (2011) proves it’s doable. ”T]ogether, tens of people from six continents would go on to write a 100,000-word novel!”, they explain. It reads like so: It is … Continue reading →
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Digital storytelling on the go

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
June 19, 2012

Ruben Puentedura shares his presentation materials for a mobile digital storytelling workshop (direct pdf link). It’s useful and thoughtful stuff, reaching from Five-Card Nancy to film theory.
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Storytelling rules from Pixar

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
June 9, 2012

One Pixar artist offers an interesting set of 20 storytelling rules. They are aimed at fiction, but most can be thoughtfully considered for nonfiction as well. For example, #6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar … Continue reading →
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Writing the blog novel

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
May 25, 2012

One prolific blog-novelist explains why she chose that format. It’s a very rich discussion. The temporal structure of blogging helped with productivity. ”A big part of it was the extra pressure to deliver: I had committed to a post every … Continue reading →
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More digital storytelling from the Obama White House

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
May 6, 2012

The Obama campaign released a Web comic as part of its election strategy. It’s called “The Life of Julia“: It takes this hypothetical woman from age 3 to 67. At each step of the way the story’s argument is clear: … Continue reading →
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The rabbit’s quest

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
April 30, 2012

Ruby’s Quest is a fascinating example of digital storytelling. It combines old-school adventure gaming with interactive fiction and social media. The plot concerns one Ruby, an anthropomorphic rabbit, who awakens in a mysterious place. She needs to figure out where … Continue reading →
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Behind Pine Point

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
April 24, 2012

The creators of the excellent Welcome to Pine Point digital story have shared their thoughts about the process of creating it. Fascinating stuff, from the emphasis on linearity to their love of sound. If you haven’t read/watched/listened to Pine Point, do so … Continue reading →
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Twittering the trenches

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
April 12, 2012

More Twitter history: follow the WWI tweets of one William Grudgings. In 1916 I left my job as a schoolteacher at Cobden Street school, Loughborough and joined the Leicestershire Regiment. I served with the 8th Bn in France. Checking @williams_war reveals … Continue reading →
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The story glove

by Bryan Alexander
April 6, 2012

Here’s a new take on multilinear digital storytelling: a glove which lets users feel their way through a narrative. Audio content is primary, along with the physical objects.
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Twittering WWI history

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
April 5, 2012

A new Twitter storytelling project is about to start. Oxford’s World War I Centenary Project is organizing a tweeting of the Battle of Arras (1917). The hashtag #arras95 marks out each updated item, both by the Project’s team (on Twitter) … Continue reading →
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A family food story

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
April 2, 2012

Here’s a fine story about food, memory, and family: Josef, by Brad Johnson. A fine example, too, of the classic Center for Digital Storytelling form. Autobiographical, emotionally charged and complex, nicely written. (via the CDS Facebook site...
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Digital storytelling contest winners

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
March 31, 2012

The TechSoup digital storytelling contest is over, and winners are on the Web. Some are videos, like this one, “I Am”: Others are photos, like the winner:
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Digital storytelling in Virginia

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
March 16, 2012

I visited the University of Mary Washington yesterday, which is always a treat. They have a fine group of digitally advanced faculty, backed up by the mad genius of their storytelling-happy DTLT crew. Over lunch I led a faculty workshop … Continue reading →
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The Tweeted Titanic

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
March 13, 2012

More Twitter storytelling: the Titanic’s voyage, tweet by tweet. The feed promises “day-by-day and minute-by-minute tweets as if from on board the ship itself”, and seems to be doing selections of that historical record. It’s a product of The History … Continue reading →
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Storytelling by Twitter: invading Earth

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
March 6, 2012

Another Twitter storytelling project appeared this week. It’s fiction, describing the invasion of the Earth by aliens. It’s promotion for a new computer game, Mass Effect 3 (the first two games being fine stories themselves). How does it work? Twitter … Continue reading →
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Historical storytelling via Twitter

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
March 5, 2012

Here’s another example of storytelling by Twitter: Revolution Daily. This feed looks at American Revolutionary events, posting snippets and summaries on the same date as they occurred. For example, Note the same-date timestamp. Revolution Daily is also a Twitter-based example … Continue reading →
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Web story game: Unmanned

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
March 1, 2012

Unmanned is the latest game from Molleindustria, and it’s a fascinating one for digital storytelling purposes. The story concerns one day in a drone operator’s life. Depending on how you play, he awakens from bad dreams, then drives to work, … Continue reading →
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How to start a game’s story

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
February 17, 2012

Here’s a fine account of one brilliant storytelling game’s opening scene: “1960 Mid-Atlantic” Slow strings slither as your eyes work to assess the environment. Only clearly do you see a dimly lit burgundy chair directly in front of you. A … Continue reading →
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New interactive fiction platform launches

by Bryan Alexander

| Syndicated
February 16, 2012

A new tool for making interactive fiction has launched. Playfic uses the excellent Inform 7 software, and keeps it on the Web. The results should look familiar to any IF fan: Once again gaming and storytelling collide. It’s one of the … Continue reading →
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