Turning “Little Rules” into an e-lit work would be a great way to expand the narrative and add depth and different points of view. Each part of the story would be accompanied by an image to illustrate the action happening in the story, to help the reader visualize the action. The very first image would be that of Harper in her blue bathing suit cover, replacing the first paragraph describing said image. If I could I’d then use flash animation that, when the image of the girl in blue was clicked on, would draw the perspective backwards into the porch where Lyn and Chloe are talking. The bright and sunlit picture of Harper by the pool would become smaller while the shadowed edges of the screened-in porch would slide in and the backs of the heads of the other two girls, turned toward Harper, would come into view. Lyn would be centered in the frame while Chloe would be to the left. This would establish Harper as the main subject of the story, but place the point of view with Lyn. The story would appear as text over this image, from “‘I can’t do this’” to “nodded toward the pool.” Lyn making her little speech, up until “’look both ways’” would be backed by a shot of Lyn’s face, while the paragraph that begins with “‘Don’t text while driving?’” would feature Lyn’s face at an angle, with Chloe’s blurry face in the periphery (reinforcing that Lyn cannot actually tell if she is angry because Lyn isn’t looking at her).  From “The cover slid forward” to “spill out her insides” would be backed with an image of Harper with her feet tangled in the cover, while “‘Don’t say a word’” to the end would appear over a shot of Chloe’s hand on Lyn’s elbow.

The biggest e-lit feature in my story would be hyperlinks. In Caitlin Fisher’s These Waves of Girls hyperlinks were used to connect a vast web of short stories into a whole with thematic connections. In my story, the main thread of the story would be broken up into parts that are hyperlinked together in sequence (so that different parts of the story can be backed by different images), but at certain points there will be other hyperlinks to additional pieces of story that give context to the main narrative, making a similar web of stories. The words “Greek tragedies in school,” for example, will link to a piece about Lyn reading Facebook posts about people condemning her actions, or perhaps an actual image of these posts, with Lyn’s classmates acting as a Greek chorus. The words “to court” would lead to a piece about Lyn actually going to court for hitting Harper. The first mention of Harper’s name would lead to a piece from her point of view detailing her thoughts before she decided to go running on the road she got hit on. The words “a crack,” referring to her scar, could link to a piece describing the actual accident.

Another multimedia tool I could use for my e-lit is audio. In each extra hyperlinked piece I could add a sound that plays as soon as you arrive at the page to help reinforce the message of the piece. The Facebook piece could play a crowd murmuring, the court piece could play a gavel banging, and the accident piece could feature a loud “thunk.” To further enhance my story, I could add video too—perhaps instead of a written piece about the accident, a video of a dramatized scene of its immediate aftermath could be embedded.

Adding interactive and audio/visual elements to the piece will help the audience gain a more complete and engrossing picture of the action surrounding the scene.

She wore a loose cover, deep blues and teals bleeding together all the way down to the tops of her feet, curling around the back of her neck and dripping down her sides to pool in the small of her back. Her left hand gripped her right hip and the other twisted the halter top knot at the base of neck, her head turned away towards the woods as though it could not bear to look over the water.

“I can’t do this,” Lyn said.

“Now or never,” Chloe answered, hand light between Lyn’s shoulders. They stood in the screened-in porch at the back of Chloe’s house. The shade made the bright backyard a world away, the girl in blue by the swimming pool a picture on a TV screen.  In the dark, Lyn seemed to wait in the seconds before someone pressed ‘play’ for the next scene.

“I pick never,” Lyn said.

“Too bad, because there’s no way she didn’t see you pulling in the driveway and now she knows we’re watching her like creeps.” Chloe’s hand fell away, but she didn’t start forward. She stared at Lyn, prompting her to move, but she shook her head, and nodded toward the pool.

“You know how they make you read Greek tragedies in school and it’s always people doing these great terrible things and then the gods ruin their life for breaking their sacred laws? It’s never like that in real life, is it?” Lyn spoke too quickly, voice cracking. Chloe turned, looking at her with faint surprise.

“Lyn, are you okay?” Chloe asked, the first time anyone had asked her that since she’d been to court.

“It’s the little rules that you have to follow,” she continued. “Those are the ones that mess you up. Use your words, stop and think, look both ways—“

“Don’t text while driving? Because that’s a pretty big rule. I figured you would know that by now.” Chloe sounded angry, but Lyn couldn’t spare a glance at her face; she was too busy watching the girl in blue’s hand drop from her neck to her chest, falter there, and then jerk back to tug the knot undone.

The cover slid forward faster than she could catch it and she had to grab the cloth at her stomach. The move unbalanced her and her feet, tangled in the slack cover, took panicked little steps—typical Harper, Lyn thought—until she let the cover fall altogether and picked one long foot at a time from the pile. She turned to pick it up, and Lyn sucked in her breath so sharply it whistled against her teeth.

Harper quickly folded the cloth back around her waist, but the sight covered up was burned as deeply into Lyn’s mind as it was in Harper’s skin : something a surly, deep rose, a crack across her right hip that seemed to spill her insides.

“Don’t say a word,” Chloe said under her breath, hand appearing again at Lyn’s elbow and digging the nails into the back of her arm, just briefly. “Don’t you dare make her feel bad about it too.”

Who do you think I am? is on the tip of Lyn’s tongue, but she jerked her arm from Chloe’s grasp and walked into the sun, readying her apology instead.

My name is Kat Averell and I am an English major here at UMD, and here at UMD is somewhere I am super glad to be this fall. You see, I spent this summer working two jobs and that was an exhausting if monetarily rewarding experience. Now, I could go on with a few random facts about my life, but I think you would get a better idea of what I’m all about if I explain why I chose to take the class.

I’d like to draw your attention to my icon, that odd and slightly eerie blue dot to the left. That is the star Vega–or more accurately, a mid-infrared image of the debris disk around Vega. I’m fascinated by astronomy, particularly the cultural associations and myths attached to the stars and constellations. The stars have been our most widespread and constant inspiration for literally the entirety of human history–doesn’t that just blow your mind? The stars are something that nearly every human that has ever been has seen! Looking at the similarities and differences in the myths across cultures and over time is a study in the wonders of the human imagination. In Chinese legend, Vega and the other vertices of the Summer Triangle tell the story of a weaver woman separated from her family, while the ancient Greeks placed the star in a constellation of Orpheus’s lyre. Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptians and Indians, and later medieval Europeans, all associated Vega with a vulture or eagle. That we so consistently take the abstract and mysterious and craft from it order and emotion–in short, stories–is to me the greatest thing about human intellect. Storytelling is the very foundation of culture and consciousness, and that’s why I’ve made it my mission to study it. I’m very excited to start exploring digital forms of storytelling as a new canvas for the oldest art known to man, and look forward to spending time in this endeavor with the staff of MITH and my good DCC friends!