I’ll be speaking on a panel about digital storytelling next month.  It’s Saturday, 9/24, at the Burlington Book Festival. Stop by! THE DAWN OF DIGITAL STORYTELLING: A PANEL DISCUSSION Storytelling-the ability to describe a world beyond the present moment-may be the … Continue reading →

What do we do with a story’s end, when reading in a book? Since we know where to find a tale’s finale, how often do readers page ahead to relieve suspense (or boredom)? A new study finds we love being … Continue reading →

Yesterday saw one prominent analysis of president Obama as flawed storyteller. It’s a moving, if flawed piece, and well worth reading for anyone interested in storytelling. Many critics have pointed out its analytical problems, from inaccurate assessments of political environments … Continue reading →

Here’s a key thought from Olen Steinhauer, in The Tourist (2009): the intelligence game is all about storytelling (270) This plays out in many ways within that nicely plotted book.  But the quote (and thought) serves another purpose, which is … Continue reading →

Journalists can apply storytelling techniques to new media and make the news come to life.  So concludes Paul Ford, after brooding on the collision between digital media and analog journalism. It’s a fine call to digital storytelling: We’ll still need professionals … Continue reading →

Digital storytelling is sometimes a serial business.  Like soap operas or cliffhanger endings, these stories can be segmented out, joined together by time, emotional content, and clever narrative work. Case in point: two novels are appearing in chunks, over time, … Continue reading →

I’m interviewed about The New Digital Storytelling over on Bloggingcritics.  The interviewer, Scott Butki, was very generous with his time, and asked very good questions.

I’m briefly interviewed in this OCLC newsletter.  There I connect futurism and storytelling: “Digital storytelling, for example,” he explains,“opens up manifold possibilities for expression and recollection, which also means multiple spaces for informational innovation.” Bryan says that digital storytelling involves … Continue reading →

How does digital storytelling play out in our time? It’s instructive to imagine how storytelling itself appears on this fun schematic (Steward Brand): On the one hand, people in each layer use storytelling for various purposes.  Government agencies have always … Continue reading →

So, I invented her. The blog A Gay Girl in Damascus just announced itself to be a work of historical fiction.  The authorial voice of Amina Arraf became “Amina Arraf”, a fictional character, created by a male grad student. The purpose … Continue reading →

Small Town Noir is a fine example of storytelling by blog, plus storytelling through remix. Remix: Small Town Noir’s contents are news accounts of crime in New Castle, a western Pennsylvanian burg.  They are supplemented by by Diarmid Mogg‘s observations. Blog: … Continue reading →

A nice example of interactive fiction can be found in Vicious Cycles.  The original story appeared in 2001 or so, a tale of time travel and terrorism.  Formally, the interesting bit is that it requires repeated replaying of a situation.  Your … Continue reading →

“Facebook is the novel we are all writing.” -Katie Rophie

Can we tell stories with Facebook? One example answers in the affirmative. A Polish historical archive created a Facebook page for one Jewish boy who was born in Lublin, then killed in the Holocaust. It’s using social media to portray … Continue reading →

We can tell stories through other types of social media beyond blogs and Twitter. Social image platforms, like Picasa or Flickr, are fine sites for narratives. Consider the Tell a Story in Five Frames Flickr group.  This requires stories to … Continue reading →

I’m giving a public talk about the new digital storytelling at the Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury, Vermont.  That’s next Wednesday, May 25, 12 noon – 1 p.m. (photo from CommunityWalk)

Digital storytelling is playing an increasing role in education. Today’s example is one photo story from the phenomenal Vermont Young Writers Project.* The story began with a visual prompt, the photo to the right of this post: Students were asked … Continue reading →

A fun storytelling visualization appears in this Periodic Table of Storytelling. The digital aspect is twofold.  First, it uses several digital tools to work, including references to one excellent, vast wiki resource, TVTropes.  Second, it addresses numerous digital stories. Here’s … Continue reading →

This is one Web outpost for The New Digital Storytelling, my recently published book (publisher page, Amazon). I’m carrying on about this subject elsewhere on the Web. There’s an Amazon author page, my Goodreads author blog, and the book’s Facebook … Continue reading →

One prominent player in the digital storytelling scene is StoryCorps.  Well known to NPR listeners, this project helps people (couples, groups of three) tell stories from their lives, then produces finished audio tracks. Recently StoryCorps has added animations to accompany … Continue reading →

Another platform for social media storytelling is Twitter. Consider, for example, the novelsin3lines project.  These are versions of Félix Fénéon’s 1906 work, which found microstories in compressed newspaper stories. No one hanged the young Russian Lise Joukovsky; she hanged herself, and … Continue reading →

Project 1968 is another story told by blogs, with several features worth noting. Two distinct voices build the narrative, each character with her own blog (Amy and Janine).  The pair are linked by the main blog site. The texts are … Continue reading →

Digital storytelling often requires preparation. Assembling media, brewing up a narrative: these take time. Is a prep-less improvised digital storytelling possible? Netprov = networked improv literature. Netprov uses everyday social technology plus the ol’ tricks of literature, graphic design, and … Continue reading →

Here’s another example from a Center for Digital Storytelling-style workshop, Doug Reilly’s  “Strange Geographies”. My goal was to make a film using essentially one image, from the overleaf of one my journals. It’s a mashup of dreams I had about … Continue reading →

Another example of blog-based storytelling is the Pepys Diary.  Each day this blog republishes a diary entry from Samuel Pepys’ diary, on the corresponding date. For example, for May 10 2011, we see May 10 1668: Beyond the basic content, … Continue reading →

Web video has become one of the leading digital storytelling venues.  One example is EconStories, which publishes music videos about… economic theory.  Each one presents competing economic analyses. Among other things, these are good examples of nonfiction storytelling.

Storytelling by blog: another example is the 2003 “…she’s a flight risk”.  Like a personal diary told in public, the author describes her current life experience.  ”Isabella” has left her marriage, and fears for her life.  Post by post unfolds … Continue reading →