Author: nikeapparent

Still here after the alien invasion? Good.

For the final assignment of EXSM 3989, we were asked to use our knowledge of storytelling principles and create a multi-platform story. I wanted to lean into my silly, sci-fi side and write a piece of fiction on my Instagram and Twitter.

In her article “Distributed Narrative: Telling Stories Across Networks” (PDF here), Dr. Jill Walker discusses how some contemporary creators are breaking down traditional fiction “unities”. Instead of being told in one contained space, stories can be fragmented across time (for example, released serially like a podcast) and/or space (told on stickers around a city, or on multiple social media platforms). Although Walker’s paper was published in 2004, when internet creation felt transgressive and impossible to commodify, her proposed principles of distributed narrative are the foundation for multi-platform online storytelling.

Best Practices Across Platforms:

Keeping in mind that many of my regular readers don’t follow both my Twitter and my Instagram, I wanted to ensure that the plot on each platform was clear, but told a different side of the same story. Because Twitter snippet storytelling and Instagram visual storytelling require slightly different skill sets, I leaned into the strengths of each platform.

Due to Twitter’s focus on brief snippets of text, I tried to keep the narrative feeling raw and unpolished. Because videos are known to powerfully influence emotion and immerse viewers in a way text never can, I complemented my text entries with footage I shot on a walk near my neighbourhood (edited using TikTok’s free, user-friendly editing software). Side-note: my neighbours probably think I’m delusional now. You can see my Tweet thread here.

I have noticed that Instagram’s focus on visual storytelling tends, in general, toward users creating more polished-looking content. To mimic this style, I used storyboarding and the software Adobe Creative Cloud to create my comedic “how-to” as an Instagram story, preserving it to my highlights so viewers can watch it after the 24-hour expiration. And, because even Instagram users feel more connected to creators who write captions, I used the opportunity to provide some context for my audience.

Check out my Instagram post here.

Finally, I focused on my favourite medium—long-form writing—to compose this blog post!

Conclusions from an alien invasion

ESXM3989 (the course, not the alien invasion) has encouraged me to experiment with the many ways that we, creators, can tell stories in the digital age. Looking ahead, I would be incredibly interested to play with even more widely-distributed narratives and build up a fictional universe.

Walker concludes by asserting that digital, distributed storytelling asks readers to actively engage with, seek out, and interpret the full story. I look forward to seeing what kinds of interpreters we become as digital technology develops.

You want to tell a story that will resonate with an audience, but this has become increasingly challenging with the average online reader’s shrinking attention span. What are effective tools you can use to hold your audience’s attention and make them remember your story?

Fortunately, online stories are really not all that different from traditional ones. Both media harness the same principles to stick in the reader’s mind. See below for a handy infographic covering the main points.

Essentially, effective strategies for digital storytelling come in three key features:

Following a narrative arc, for example, the hero or buyer’s journey. Even if your story is an advertisement, audiences want to watch a protagonist (perhaps even themselves) face obstacles and arrive at a satisfying conclusion.

Evoking emotion through tactics like relatability, suspense, and emotionally-charged language. But be careful, as using emotion without nuance can make your story seem manipulative.

Harnessing visuals to hold attention. Because we are visual creatures, we process images much faster than text. Movement, colour, and vibrancy can all keep your reader engaged.

As Katy French states powerfully in her article, Why Data Storytelling Is Marketing Gold for Your Brand, “In a world where we are besieged by data but desperate for meaning, data storytelling helps connect the dots.” By harnessing classic tools for powerful storytelling, we can provide meaning for an oversaturated online audience in an ever-evolving digital era.

Okay everyone, so having gone down the rabbit hole of short-form horror fiction on Twitter this week, I was reminded that I have a cursed structure near my house that I have never investigated. #EXSM3989

— Nic.Oval (@OvalNic) February 19, 2022

Taylor Holland, in her excellent blog post discussing the use of short-form storytelling in marketing, mentions that she has “often worried that brevity will become a lost art” —a concern, she adds, that has lessened with the rise of short-form or “snippet” storytelling social media. This week, we learned about the challenges and benefits of this medium by creating our own live-Tweeted snippet story.

For my story, I was inspired by the short-form Twitter ghost stories that I’ve been reading this week to go on my own adventure: walking into the river valley to take a peek into a creepy playhouse that I had been afraid of for over two years. Rather than creating a fictional story, I decided to lean into the storytelling principles of authenticity and relatability. Marketing entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck advises, “Document, don’t create” —that is, share your genuine experiences and thoughts to build a connection with your audience. In this case, I evoked authenticity by writing in my speaking voice, and added short video clips to make the experience more relatable.

To tell an effective story, I built tension through publishing Tweets one at a time, drawing the reader in just as I experienced anticipation while descending the river valley. As I neared the climax and reached the house, I chose to incorporate more video clips. As Ashley Fell discusses in her TEDx Talk, which I covered last week, visuals are powerful tools to harness a digital audience’s attention; as such, I relied solely on video as I finally peered inside the house. Finding no ghosts, but lots of graffiti, I returned to a text-based medium that would break the tension and lead the audience to the resolution of the story. The final Tweet attempts to convey my own feelings that the “curse” has been lifted, now that I had taken the step to indulge my curiosity.

On the other side of this live-Tweeting experience, I believe that the challenge of Twitter’s word limit is the true power of snippet storytelling. The medium itself forces us, as creators, to distill our thoughts to their purest form. In doing so, it becomes easy to arrive at your most authentic voice, showing the world your personality. I look forward to incorporating these lessons into my long-form stories.

Warning: Spoilers for Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016)

I don’t think I was expecting anything more than a fun movie-going experience when I first went to watch Denis Villeneuve’s film Arrival in theatres, but I wasn’t expecting to get chills from watching the interactions of the human scientists making first contact with aliens. The film’s imagery and storytelling have stuck with me and have led me to rewatch the film many times since that first experience.

Why is it so effective?

For the second week of my course Digital Storytelling, we looked into the essential elements of good storytelling. This goes beyond just what makes a good film or even a digital story, but taps into the core of how people make communicate meaningfully. I would like to apply this lens to my favourite film, Arrival, to explore makes it so memorable.

The Story Spine

In his blog post, Back to the Story Spine, Kenn Adams discusses the narrative technique of the story spine—a kind of barebones outline that allows us to pare a story to its “structural core”. When applying this technique to Arrival, we can see how tight the film’s focus is on the protagonist, Louise Banks.

Once upon a time…	There was a linguist named Louise who was incredibly skilled with translating unfamiliar languages.
Every day…	She taught at her university, settled in her routine.
But, one day…	The appearance of alien ships sent a military team to collect Louise, in the hopes that she could use her skills to find out what the aliens wanted.
Because of that…	Louise studied the aliens closely, and began to suspect they didn’t mean any harm.
Because of that…	She learned to perceive time the way the aliens did.
Until finally…	Louise was able to use her foresight to stop a war among the humans, and the aliens left her with the key to their language.
And, ever since then…	Louise became an expert on the alien language, while needing to continue her life while perceiving time in a non-human way.

While the spine misses the flavour and details of a story, this device is useful for showing us the essence of a plot. And, despite being about non-linear time, the core of Arrival tightly follows Louise’s personal, linear journey as she learns to speak like the aliens, the Heptapods. But, of course, there is much more to the story that sparks the imagination. What are the elements that make Arrival an effective story?

The Four I-s

Writers and marketing experts, responding to the short attention spans of a digital audience, argue that good storytelling distills a plot to its essentials. For example, a quick Google search for Pixar’s Rules of Storytelling reveals that the universally-loved studio follows the same guidelines to create powerful movies.

Social analyst and communications expert Ashley Fell, in her 2017 TEDX Talk on storytelling in the digital era, explains that memorable stories exhibit the 4 I’s.

Interest: Stories hold our attention through stakes. Cyriaque Lamar, quoting Emma Coats’ 22 Rules of Pixar, asks us to “give a reason to root for the character” and to consider “what happens if they don’t succeed”. In Arrival, we not only fear the motivations of the Heptapods, but also the outbreak of a global war as a result of misunderstanding the aliens’ words.

Instruct: Deeper than simply featuring a lesson, a story needs to have meaning. Pixar’s rule #22, echoing the ideas behind Kenn Adam’s story spine, asks “What’s the essence of your story?” Arrival is really about humans learning to connect to others despite cultural divide, arguing that we cannot survive without communication.

Involve: Stories should involve us by asking us to engage our empathy. Pixar Rule #15 asks writers to put themselves into the shoes of their characters, adding that “honestly lends credibility to unbelievable situations.” Arrival succeeds by having the characters react viscerally and believably to meeting the aliens for the first time. The fear and awe are clear on their faces when entering an unknown spaceship—as is the nausea from being inside a ship with variable gravity.

Inspire: Finally, Pixar prompts its writers to ask what inspires them: “What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.” Fell compares powerful stories to the experience of watching the shape, colour, and movement of a campfire. Just how a flame draws us in, a story should be visual, whether these are real images or vibrant prose that triggers our imagination.

And here, Arrival has truly impactful visuals, only enhanced by its music. A giant form floating above a flat field; creatures occupying the uncanny space between sea creature and a human hand; Louise reaching to touch her palm to a transparent wall, fingertip inches away from the trails of ink that make up the Heptapod’s language. Despite being a simple story at its core, these images are why Arrival has continued to inspire me.

What does story mean to us?

When I was in the theatre, I couldn’t articulate all these reasons that Arrival really meant something to me. Even now, equipped with Fell’s “4 I-s of storytelling” and Pixar’s “22 Rules”, I still feel that some spark is missing when talking about why this story inspired me to study science fiction and deeply influenced my own writing. Yet I think these rules still come close to evoking that spark. The powerful visuals, deeply human characters, and underlying message of collaboration make up the true colour and motion of Arrival’s flames.