The door swung open. I watched my ethereal companion drift slowly through the opening with narrowed eyes; no space in this dungeon had embraced me without opposition. As the light from the cavernous room danced in my eyes I felt the familiar flames and their accompanying warmth spring instinctively into my right hand. An arrow whizzed by my cloak and I felt my left fist spring out automatically, spewing white lightning in a crackling ark in front of me. I lept savagely through the causeway, sprouting an inferno of concentrated element from my outstretched fingers, towards the wall of Draugrs lurking within. Smoke and dust obscured my vision, a faint sizzling filled my nostrils and one by one, the sound of dull thuds reverberated throughout the quieting space.

I staggered, catching my breath, trying to take in the scene through the faint green light emanating from the floor itself. Ashes and bodies littered the floor, leading in a trail through the haze to the glowing, white figure standing at the foot of a staircase — my companion stared at me with a faint smile on his face. This first modicum of expression had an instant effect on me; I felt my heart accelerate and the divine energy course faster through me; the sweat flowed freely beneath my mask — the wall, the word, here in this very room.

Despite the stationary stature of my companion, I bounded up the staircase, the tolls of the previous battle all but forgotten in my blind rush towards the wall. I could hear the word’s energy pounding against its stony barricade, waiting for my presence to give it release. I sprang onto the platform, sprinting full tilt towards the stone barricade in front in me, basking in the divine glow of the Dova…

And yet, iron collided with bone and the oxygen was knocked from my lungs, as a savage blow sent me flying back at twice the speed I had ascended. I looked up in time to see my assailant sailing through the air towards my exposed figure. I clenched my fist, attempting to summon what fire I had left in me, pouring the last of my strength into the blast. As I raised my hand, poised to release, my foe inches from my face, I saw my companion leap to my defense it in a manner far more severe than I thought his wispy body capable. I heard my attacker screech as my companion plunged his steel sword through its vulnerable flesh.

I rose to my feet. My companion turned to face me with that look of satisfaction etched on his otherworldly face. As I walked, this time patiently, towards the wall, I saw him disappear out of the corner of my eye. He would know peace at last.

The word burned scorchingly out of the wall, blending with my soul as I felt the glory of the Dragon envelop the entirety of my being. I knew its meaning at long last.

My story actually focuses on the vitriolic effect that the Internet and the media have had on political discourse, which makes it well suited to an e-lit conversion. An audio loop, similar to the one featured on the introduction page of “These Waves of Girls,” would play throughout the entire story. It would be comprised of a mashup and remix of recorded arguments on the House and Senate floors from C-SPAN. The intention would be to set the inflammatory tone of the story as well as to make the content difficult to focus on. This would reinforce the story’s suggestion that legitimate debate is being stifled by those who shout the loudest or have the catchiest phrases (and sometimes, the most money).

In conjunction with the audio, I would utilize color in order to help set the mood. The story describes red hellish glows, fires and otherworldly entities. By contrast, the background would be blue and the text white, and there would be red stripes running along the side. This effect would conjure the sense of ill-defined patriotism that runs so prominantly through the types of advertisements and stump speeches my story attempts to critique.

Hyperlinks would be used in order to clear up some of the ambiguities in the story. Certain phrases would be hyperlinked to image generators, with each click leading to a picture of a different politician’s face. For example, the phrase: “with the dispassionate craving of self-preservation,” could be attached to any number of elected officials known as flip floppers, in order to underscore their visible desire to be reelected rather than serve the common good.

In “Up Against the Screen Motherfuckers,” the protagonist, a soldier, flashes across the screen as sounds of broken machines and images of shattered monitors play. In my story, the antagonist, who destroys the story’s symbol of broken political discourse, would flash across the screen while on the story’s page, briefly obscuring the content. Each “antagonist,” is, in this case, a different Supreme Court Justice, as they bear responsibility for the influx of campaign money that has made the current state of campaign affairs possible. They also have the power to overturn their own rulings, and the reader of the story has the power to vote for a party which influences justice nominations.

Finally, instead of the last line of the story, spoken by the protagonist, I would include the source of the quote:

“I am sorry,” said God. “This is the way it had to be.”

 

The girl’s retort emerged as ephemerally as the substanceless clouds which made up the ground beneath her feet: “I am not a witch“

If I knew how to embed within WordPress, the Christine O’Donnell video would be embedded rather than linked, so that the quote would have to be stated aloud during a “read” of the story. The ad and its maker are some of the better real world examples of the issues I raise, and an integral part of the narrative. It makes sense to feature them explicitly.

The first thing she heard was a shuffle above, indicating an illicit opening of the front door. A single, dancing slit of firelight illuminated the girl’s slowly stirring body as it woke — reacting instinctively to the additional visitor in her abode. And then stillness. All she could hear above the din of the world outside burning was her own shallow breathing, that of a creature of the night resting fearfully in its nest. Before she could rise, she would be stopped. This was all her attacker, lurking omnisciently above, knew for certain.

There was a crash and a splintering of drywall as the ceiling shattered. Descending in a glowing pillar of dust and foreboding, the attacker landed gracefully at the foot of the bed. The Girl’s red eyes darted upward with a visceral fear exclusive to the undead: the dispassionate crave of self-preservation.

“You?” She asked, her voice harsh from lack of use.

“Yes,” came the instantaneous reply. Suddenly, in a movement faster than those of this world are primed to expect, the attacker drew its wooden stake and plunged it deep into the girl’s very soul. The girl struggled with the weapon, attempting fruitlessly to remove it from her body. Light began to leak out from the edges of the wound. A crimson flash emanated from the stilling girl, basking the room in the essence of hellfire itself. “It is I.”

And the girl’s very being was purged from this existence, ripped from her broken body, damned eternally to its next.

Her consciousness, flung from her mortal self, landed squarely at the feet of her oppressor, the one that had bound her to this ever-present fate.

“I am sorry,” said God. “This is the way it had to be.”

The girl’s retort emerged as ephemerally as the substanceless clouds which made up the ground beneath her feet: “I am not a witch.”

Hi! My name is Benjy Cannon, and I’m a sophomore government and politics major. My interest in digital storytelling actually started with a project I helped with at Spark Media, a film studio that was working on a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Spark had produced a documentary, Soul of a People, which told the story of the Federal Writers Project, a subset of FDR’s Federal works project. I helped them design a game, which put the player in the shoes of one of the writers in an interactive forum which sought to recreate the guidebooks written by FDR’s crew through the Internet.

I’m super passionate about memes and their potential for bringing people together. It strikes me as incredible that a supposed “inside” joke can be shared by so many people.

As my major may imply, I’m totally obsessed with everything political (aka everything at all, because everything is kind of political), and I absolutely love literature. I sometimes joke to myself that I would have been an English major in an ideal world, usually before realizing that my government degree won’t help me get much more of a job.

I used to own a copy of Microsoft’s 3D Movie Maker, which was a really cool tool for telling digital stories. It was definitely geared at kids, but it had some really fantastic creative uses.  It fed my need for creativity for the longest time, until it became incompatible with my OS (it was originally designed for Windows 95). Since then, I’ve been searching for a piece of software/a method to continue to apply that outlet, and am eagerly anticipating getting it out of this class.

Also I chose a cannon as my Avatar, not because I endorse violent imagry, but because my name is Benjy Cannon and tend to jump on the opportunity to utilize visual representations of my surname.