Thursday, February 14, 2013
Character Progression
I really need to develop Cassie's personal traits and details. I want to make her a unique character that interacts with the rest of the group in interesting ways. In order to accomplish this, I think I need to move back and create a few very short stories that take place in her past, both in California and on the road. Then, I'm going to expand upon the story about the haunting I posted on google maps. I plan on writing everything in first person, so I really want her personality and voice to become distinct and apparent. I want to develop the character to the point than an audience would find her believable as a real person (or at least a decent character). I also plan on reading my group members' blogs so I can begin to think about how Cassie would interact with their characters.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Top 10
CGTS contains a lot of practical, useful, and interesting information. While some of the info doesn't really apply to our assignment, the majority of it can be used to improve our characters and narrative. The top 10 things I will take away from CGTS are:
1.The Meaning of Transmedia Storytelling-Before reading this book, I had no idea what transmedia storytelling meant or involved. Now I think I have a clear understanding of the puropse of transmedia narratives. Hopefully, I can use this understanding to help write a successful narrative in my group.
2.The Basics of Storytelling-It's definitely been a while since I've done any creative writing. The book helped me brush up on the imortant parts of storytelling like characterization, plot, rising tension, and conflict.
3.Methods of Online Characterization-Without interesting characters, a narrative falls flat. CGTS gives us valuable tips for developing characters' voices and personalites through technology in order to avoid this pitfall.
4.How to Convey Action-I never thought about the different ways to convey action before reading this, such as whether I wanted to inform the audience about news live or delayed.
5.The Truth About Audience Involvment-I also never realized how small a portion of the audience actively participates in the storytelling process. The relatively small but influential portion makes me realize I need to make the game engaging but still fun for people to just follow.
6.How to Select Media-The book tells us to stick with our strengths when selecting media. I'll definitely follow this advice to avoid frustration and mistakes.
7.The Story Bible-A story bible would be useful to my group since there will be multiple people working on the same narrative. It's already difficult to keep the story straight.
8.The Imortance of Redundancy-Usually, I think of redundancy as a bad thing. Now I realize I need to recap to avoid confusing my audience.
9.The Positives and Negatives of User Generated Content-I now realize I need to be careful of how much use generated content I use in my narrative, because it is often poor quality.
10.The Imortance of Rewarding the Audience-The book helped me remember that keeping the audience happy and engaged is the most important part of storytelling. Rewarding them for effort is the number one way to accomplish this goal.
1.The Meaning of Transmedia Storytelling-Before reading this book, I had no idea what transmedia storytelling meant or involved. Now I think I have a clear understanding of the puropse of transmedia narratives. Hopefully, I can use this understanding to help write a successful narrative in my group.
2.The Basics of Storytelling-It's definitely been a while since I've done any creative writing. The book helped me brush up on the imortant parts of storytelling like characterization, plot, rising tension, and conflict.
3.Methods of Online Characterization-Without interesting characters, a narrative falls flat. CGTS gives us valuable tips for developing characters' voices and personalites through technology in order to avoid this pitfall.
4.How to Convey Action-I never thought about the different ways to convey action before reading this, such as whether I wanted to inform the audience about news live or delayed.
5.The Truth About Audience Involvment-I also never realized how small a portion of the audience actively participates in the storytelling process. The relatively small but influential portion makes me realize I need to make the game engaging but still fun for people to just follow.
6.How to Select Media-The book tells us to stick with our strengths when selecting media. I'll definitely follow this advice to avoid frustration and mistakes.
7.The Story Bible-A story bible would be useful to my group since there will be multiple people working on the same narrative. It's already difficult to keep the story straight.
8.The Imortance of Redundancy-Usually, I think of redundancy as a bad thing. Now I realize I need to recap to avoid confusing my audience.
9.The Positives and Negatives of User Generated Content-I now realize I need to be careful of how much use generated content I use in my narrative, because it is often poor quality.
10.The Imortance of Rewarding the Audience-The book helped me remember that keeping the audience happy and engaged is the most important part of storytelling. Rewarding them for effort is the number one way to accomplish this goal.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Principles of Storytelling
Andrea Phillips's A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling offers many interesting and helpful tips related to character and story development. Since our characters and stories are still in their early stages of development, we have the opportunity to apply the author's advice on the principles of storytelling to our work. For instance, Phillips describes the value of worldbuilding in storytelling. Phillips states, "In transmedia storytelling, though, the most effective tool is to actually create a small piece of your world and give it to your audience to play with" (pg.43). Allowing the audience direct interaction makes the world feel more real and, therefore, more interesting. One way my group could apply this approach to our story is to create a website where the audience can view our videos, recordings, and print records of paranormal activity. Maybe they could even contribute their own paranormal experiences and evidence in a comment section or chatroom. We should design a unique logo to create the illusion we're a real organization. I also liked Phillips's description of conflict and it's importance in storytelling. Reading this section made me realize my group hasn't really come up with an idea for conflict that will drive our story. Phillips suggests, "think very hard about your characters and what their utmost hearts' desires might be...dangle that possibility in front of their noses, and then come up with a situation in which they can't have it" (pg.59). I suppose the desire all of my group's characters would have in common is finding evidence of paranormal activity. The conflict would be the fact that such evidence is very difficult to find. However, all of our individual characters should probably have their own unique desires and minor conflicts if we want the story to be engaging. The individual desires could possibly even create conflict within the group. In conclusion, these two sections gave me many ideas about how to involve an audience in our imaginary world using various media and write an interesting story. Phillips also prompted me to think deeper about my character and her desires/motivations.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)