The Art of Interactive Narratives

On the other hand, poemsthatgo.com break the traditional narrative and create more complex and interactive narrative forms. I chose “Jabber: The Jabberwokey Engine” by Neil Hennessey. The poem was influenced by Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” story. In this poem, the purpose is to have an interactive narration through non-English words. “When a letter comes into contact with another letter or group of letters, a calculation occurs to determine whether they bond according to the likelihood that they would appear contiguously in the English lexicon. Clusters of letters accumulate to form words, which results in a dynamic nonsense word sound poem floating around on the screen with each iteration of the generator.” It is collaboration between letters to form words. In a way this parallels to different elements of a story. These clusters form a whole.

What I found most interesting is the infinite possibilities of the generator. Unlike other stories, this narrative does not have a beginning, a middle, or an end. However, the audience can interact with the story and restart it and conjure up more “Jabbers” whenever they wish. It is a great form of interaction and breaks the traditional rules of a narrative.

I also enjoyed the technical aspect of the narrative as well. In the information section of the website page, they give notes on how to read the “words.” They explain the process as, “JABBER realizes a linguistic chemistry with letters as atoms and words as molecules.” The thought process of this narrative is so intriguing and interesting. The blue words are the entire words, and the red words will “explode.” This narrative is definitely interactive and explosive!

The Art of the "Song of the Settled"

The narrative that I chose from bornmagazine.com is the “Song of the Settled.” On the website, the story is available through Flash Player and is told through a slideshow. The canvas is a beautiful setting of leaves and parchment paper with a handwritten sans serif. The story appears with beautiful artwork, awaiting the audience’s interpretation. Soon after, the handwritten lines appear as if someone is writing them. The colors of the images illustrate the poem beautifully.

In order to get to the next slide, the viewer needs to click to advance in the story. It is “run” by the reader to continue on. Also, the poem is somewhat literal, but the illustrations are very abstract and open for interpretation. It allows the reader to read into the poem not only between the lines, but through the artwork as well.

The story and the artwork parallel with the organic elements. The use of color and adjectives both portray the theme and meaning of the story.

This narrative is a definite success because not only does it engage the reader, it supplies the audience with multiple forms of the story. The canvas, the paintings, and the story itself all contribute to a greater whole.

Also, the story is so powerful because it is simple and short. The poem itself is only fourteen lines, but is brought to life through the separation of the lines and the specific meanings of each. The poem itself is extremely delicate and the fading effect on the artwork and the slides create an elegant feel to the poem as well.

Lastly, this piece does not push the traditional narrative, yet it creates life and beauty to a narrative. The colors, the artwork, the design, and the overall story are a form of beauty and sophistication that a paper and pen cannot give.

Distributed Narrative

To the general reader, a narrative is composed of a beginning, a middle, and an end (Walker 2004). According to Aristotle, the traditional story includes unity: time, space, and action (Walker, 2004). The term “unity” involves the narrative to be told in a single day and location with a series of events that illustrate the main idea. However, what would happen if an “author,” the controller of the story, broke the rules? Why should narratives be confined when there are infinite ways to tell a story?

Jill Walker, author of “Distributed Narrative: Telling Stories Across Networks,” explored the varieties of story telling. Distributed narratives are written with a sense of unity as a whole, but include broken elements. To illustrate this concept, Walker included a narrative created entirely out of stickers. The stickers entitled “Implementation” were posted throughout the world for people to examine and connect. Although some people may be oblivious to the stickers, it could also have an affect on the particular audience and a desire for more. This story is the ideal example of a broken narrative. The stickers were posted in different locations so therefore contradicts Aristotle’s unity of space. In a literal sense, the stickers are separate pieces that contribute to a whole, so therefore it is a distributed narrative (Walker, 2004).

“Distributed Narrative: Telling Stories Across Networks” truly explores and encourages readers to search and accept distributed narratives. Because we have access to various media platforms, our generation clearly has an advantage to this art form.

A distributed narrative in our current media can be the “Trending Topics” on Twitter. Although this is not a traditional narrative, the “weblog” includes the unity of time and action. More specifically, the Trending Topics are threads of the most popular subjects included in posts worldwide. For example, “Inception” was the top Trending Topic for weeks after it’s premiere date. Twitter enables the account holder to click on the topic, therefore being able to read all of the postings regarding “Inception.” Also, Trending Topics are constant. When one searches a subject, the page automatically refreshes with new posts to keep the topic as updated as possible.In the form of

a narrative, the topic is the “story” with which hundreds, thousands, even millions of people contribute their specific ideas from different locations. It is a way to interact through the narrative not only to read the topic, but to receive a “response” as well. This form of interaction is somewhat similar to “Online Caroline.” “Caroline” would interact with the reader through email and express personal and “real” emotions. Although “Caroline” is fictional, her devoted readers appreciated her emails and showed interest as well. According to Jill Walker, this form of interaction through narratives was simple and addicting because it only took 5-10 minutes of one’s day (Walker, 2004). Likewise, Twitter is easily accessible and convenient, especially the Trending Topics. Tweets are simple to read, given they can only be 140 characters. Tweets regarding Trending Topics are all fragments of one unanimous subject at the same time, therefore enabling interaction with the audience and the narrative.

Citation: Walker, J. (2004). Distributed narrative: telling stories across networks.