Well, we had appointments in Edmonton, see we live 2 hours away in a small town. So, we figured let’s take full advantage and go shopping. It was only supposed to be myself and one of my daughters, but one turned to two and now here we go.
Click on the link to follow our day.
I chose to do my live-tweet assignment on my first play-through of the new Nintendo Switch game Mario Party Superstars! It is a multiplayer game and is great for family game night… without the clean-up! My partner and I played through a 10 turn game with 2 CPUs. If you are interested in board games or video games I would recommend the game. You don’t need any ‘gaming’ skills either!
https://twitter.com/WintonKayleigh/status/1457937677542592512
I tried to evoke a reaction with my live-tweeting by showing my anger and/or enthusiasm while playing the game. I also tried to display aspects of the game to others who may be interested in playing it themselves; highlighting my favourite parts while playing into the “tense” competition!
I have never been a sports fan before, and I still don’t consider myself as one, but I have started to really enjoy the motorsport Formula 1 which I started watching in 2020. There is a great Netflix series called Drive to Survive about the challenges F1 drivers and their teams are facing in the season they are currently competing in and it is very interesting to watch. This series is the reason I have become so invested in the sport.
Every second Sunday during the F1 season, two hours is specifically dedicated to race day in our home, I have never been this dedicated to watching a sport before. I scream at the tv and hold my head in agony every time there is a pit stop longer than 2.5 seconds. I cannot believe who I have become.
This was the first time I have live-tweeted and I must say I enjoyed it. Play-by-play real-time updates of watching something and sharing your thoughts was a great experience.
My Twitter thread was based on the battle for the championship of the 2021 Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix. The battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton the two biggest rivals in this year’s season. I have chosen to tweet about the race from beginning to end, with suspense and drama along the way.
I made use of gifs and pictures to give the reader a visual experience too. I explained shortly about the two main characters of the story and what they were competing for. I made sure it was simple to read and easy to follow along.
I hope you enjoyed and learned a thing or two about this exciting motorsport!
For my live-tweet, I chose the latest episode of Bob’s Burgers recently added on Disney+. As I said in my thread, it’s a show my family has watched since the pandemic lockdowns last year. I opened up with a casual call to read along to grab reader interest, establish the tone of my writing, and inform people what my thread would be about. I also included a thematically appropriate gif at the end for additional visual appeal.
It was challenging trying to actively use storytelling techniques during a live-tweet. It was important to provide active commentary that wasn’t just summarizing what was on the screen but also a story of how my family watches the show together. Ideally, during a live-tweet of a show or film, others are following along. At the same time, a live-tweet thread should provide enough engagement that a reader would want to follow along even without being able to watch.
To better achieve this, I tried to follow some of the storytelling principles we’ve learned to encourage engagement and the advice found in the articles by Gary Vaynerchuk and Nick Reese. I mixed “passion with practicality” by not being overly concerned with the episode plot summary and instead putting snippets of my live experience into my story. Structure was provided by my introduction where I also established the setting of it being a family watch after dinner. It continued with the body of my thread where I provided brief summaries with commentary and visual interest of supporting gifs. Then I established an ending with closing tweets describing what happened with my family after the show was over and one thanking the reader for joining us.
If I were to do this again, I would pick a longer show or film in order to give myself time to provide better commentary not only of what was happening onscreen but of what was going on in my head or my home. It would also give me more time to be aware of my writing and search for any interest-grabbing accompanying images or video. Overall, this was a great way to practice storytelling techniques and allow my family to be part of the experience.
I knew it would be difficult to carry on a live tweet but I had no idea it would be so difficult to get the story started.
Picking the topic was the hardest part and then it just started to happen. For this tweet thread, today I had just had a conversation with our condo board as a result of being excluded in the communication regarding my parking spot. The condo board had contacted my sweetheart who is not on the document for the parking spot, but who does share all other documentation on our place.
I wrote an outline with a:
Beginning: The condo board contact my sweetheart instead of me
Middle: This is a recurring situation for women with shared accounts, especially for finance, car and home situations.
and
End: A solution for companies to have better communication and a call-out for ending practices that contribute to the inequality of their women customers.
Then the comments and life helped the story evolve and I was able to incorporate those into it. It made the story more dynamic as it went on and helped support the story’s spine.
Every day: many organizations do not communicate with women who are on shared accounts
But one day: an organization did that to me and I got frustrated
Because of that: I am raising awareness of the issue
Because of that: Women are left out of important decision making in the household
Because of that: Women spend lots of time dealing with a problem they shouldn’t have
Because of that: Equality is not where it could be
Because of that: Customer service systems need to change
Until finally: A solution and a suggestion to fix the problem is made
And ever since then: We hope that companies will do better and my rant is done
It was interesting how real life was able to change and add to the story as it was occurring. The phone call from the research firm gave me a fresh example to show how prevalent the issue is and added a bit of excitement.
I’m sharing my adventure at the spa with you. I was not asked for a proof of vaccination. I was reluctant to ask them if everyone is vaccinated or if they require staff and clients to be vaccinated. Therefore, I decided to do some research on mandatory vaccination in Ontario. I don’t live in Toronto anymore, but I’m here for a visit.
Here is my Twitter thread:
https://mobile.twitter.com/yusuralbahrani/status/1457877831237709825
Tonight I watched You Season 3 Episode 6. I won’t lie it was a challenge to live-tweet because it’s an episode of a TV show, it’s one story within a bigger story, a piece of a puzzle. But nonetheless, we did it!
You is kind of hard to explain. It’s complicated. But it all stems around Joe, the main character and as we get into Seasons 2 and 3, Love also becomes a main character. Basically, they’re sociopaths. They become obsessed with other people and then long story short, somebody ends up dead.
The story of this particular episode revolves around Joe getting to know his co-worker a little bit more. The episode begins with him in her house looking for clues and bits and pieces to help him understand who she is. As the episode goes on, he finds out more and more and ultimately, the two end up having feelings for each other.
To make matters more complicated, Love, Joe’s wife, has just cheated on him with the teenage neighbor and could be pregnant with his child. Fortunately, she gets her period and his thankfully not pregnant. A bullet dodged if you will. She’s had a complicated relationship with her brother and it’s continued even after he died. While he’s no longer around, she’s found solace in sending him text messages. In one of the scenes, she’s in a bathtub and she hallucinates that her brother, Forty, is there with her. In the end she comes to the realization that she has to give her brother up and focus her attention on Joe. This, at the same time Joe is mingling with his new crush, Marienne.
The episode ends with a conversation between Love and Joe about how to keep the neighbor away. In a previous episode, Love killed the neighbor’s wife. Anyway, Love’s idea is essentially to seduce the neighbor’s son, Theo, the one with whom she cheated on Joe. Joe thinks it’s a great idea but only because it means he can spend more time with Marriene.
When I was live-tweeting this, I tried to follow the basic principles of good storytelling. It’s not a whole complete story, so I will say it was challenging. But within the confines of the the one episode, the beginning was Joe looking for more information about Marienne, the middle and conflict were what to do about Marienne and the ending was him deciding that he was still going to be involved with her. Love went through a bit of a different battle in the episode, where the beginning was her struggling to come to terms with potentially being pregnant with someone who was not her husband, letting go of the unhealthy relationship with her brother and deciding she wanted to be happy with Joe.
Throughout the course of the show, I’ve found myself rooting for different people. I think in this episode, though, I was rooting for Love. While she’s certainly not an angel, I could see her struggle. She just wanted to be happy but that’s so hard to do when you understand how complicated her life is.
The underlying theme in this show, at least this season, is Love and Joe’s continued struggle. They both want to be with the other person or at least think they should want to be but always find something that gets in the way. And then, somehow work through it and crawl back to each other. I think this particular episode definitely drove that forward.
It’s new, it’s thrilling, it’s sexy…it’s Monday RUN day! Documenting my first run of the week, this live tweet thread is a real-time account of the lead up to, and actual experience of, a non-runner’s lunch run.
Despite the mundane topic, I wanted this thread to be relatable, suspenseful, and emotive, in order to create a compelling story. Who doesn’t dread exercise!? Will she make it through the run!? What’s going to happen next!? I crafted this thread along the lines of a thriller story like the ones we saw in our required readings; I wanted there to be some tension and suspense about what would happen next, but I also used humour to relate to readers, elicit emotion, and acknowledge the absurdity of turning such an ordinary activity into a topic worthy of being shared as a story.
Using short sentences and writing how you speak lends to the authenticity of the live tweet, and it is effective in pulling the audience into the story, enticing them to keep reading. The pacing of short stories such as this one is essential to keeping readers engaged and invested in the events that are unfolding…it’s more like listening to a friend recounting an exciting incident than reading any type of literature! My story has a clear beginning (introducing the topic, telling the audience what to expect and creating anticipation with the first tweet), middle (the highs and lows of the run experience, as well as the tension created throughout), and end (completion of the run) and resolves with the protagonist having grown and changed in some way (professional runner, ready to tackle a marathon). I kept to the basic structure of the 8-point Story Arc, although with a Twitter story, I feel it’s unnecessary to introduce your protagonist and establish “stasis”. You can assume that your audience is roughly on the same page as you and jump right into the “trigger” or event that launches your story, subsequently taking them through the thrilling steps of your adventure.
Writing in this way is exciting and can be very expressive – the creativity that emerges when you are limited by word count and format is fascinating. As a writer, you must be able to very quickly reel your audience in and get them on your level – their limited point of view allows them to experience the event as you are, right now, in the moment. Short-snippet storytelling is an extremely distilled way to share your perspective on something, making it a very relatable and engaging way to connect with your audience.
My sleep deprivation came back when our 2 year old son decided to pull a stunt by climbing out of the crib. We were pushing our luck by keeping him in there any longer as he is a tall kid. But we don’t need another free roaming toddler in the house, just not yet. The twitter thread documents the critical thinking in my head in response to this incident.
I first heard The Veldt as a song by deadmau5, one that makes me cry every time I hear it. I’ve been fortunate to hear it played live twice by the man himself. The story behind the song is one of amazement, in itself. Joel Zimmerman (aka deadmau5) released the instrumental of the track and asked people to submit their own vocal. And alas, what we have today was the very first vocal he ever heard. There’s even video of him discovering it.
And then, I learned the song’s concept is based off a short story called The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. Once I read the story, everything about the song and the video made so much more sense and gave me an even greater sense of meaning and emotion toward the song.
What stands out to me about this story is how ahead of it’s time it was. It’s a science fiction story that starts with details about a home cleaning and cooking itself. As the characters move in their home, the lights turn on and off by themselves. Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1950, there isn’t the slightest possibility this story was routed in the reality of its time. It is soon discovered the parents in the story have a “nursery” in their home which will become the main subject of the story. It’s a two-dimensional box that somehow changes into a real African veldt, complete with sun and heat, essentially virtual reality in the 1950’s.
As the story continues, a sense of uneasiness develops. While the home the couple have chosen to live in can do everything for them, they begin to not feel at home. They want to do everything again for themselves, the housekeeping, the cooking, the taking care of their children. They begin to contemplate the idea of “turning off” their home including the nursery. The father begins to contemplate the nursery and how it’s taken over his children’s lives. In his thoughts, you realize that the landscape/theme of the nursery is a direct result of what the person inside of it is thinking about, meaning that the children have though up this African veldt.
The parents decide to consult a psychologist because they are concerned about their children’s well-being. He recommends they shut it down as the nursery is becoming a channel toward destructive thoughts instead of a release. At this suggestion, the family decide it is time to leave their home, to leave the place where everything is done for them and to leave the nursery that has turned their children away from them.
After learning of this, Peter and Wendy, the two children are not happy and beg to go to the nursery one more time. The parents finally agree and not long after, their children call them to the Sahara. The door slams as the children lock them in and soon lions surround them. All they can do is scream. The very last scene in the story is the two children and the psychologist in the nursery eating a picnic lunch. The psychologist asks where the parents are as lions feed in the background. Wendy says, “Oh they’ll be here directly.”
The first time I read the story and even as I read it again just now, I was shocked. Just the right amount of details are provided to point the reader to the conclusion that the veldt was real and Wendy and Peter wanted their parents dead. Reading it in 2021, I see it as a commentary on technology, how we’re so reliant on it and we would go to extreme lengths to keep it, very Black Mirror-esque. I still can’t get over the fact that this was written in 1950. It makes me wonder what the people of that time thought when they read it.
It’s only a 13 page story but I can still get all of the elements of a good story out of it. The beginning, middle and end are clear. I root for the parents to figure out their lives so then can become happy again. And there becomes a very clear conflict that needs to be addressed. Ultimately, it is addressed but not in the way you would think.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 