When thinking of possible ways to re-imagine my short story from last week, I immediately thought of the assigned pre-reading from last week, “These Waves of Girls“. I feel that my story, “Reflex” would work well if modeled after Caitlin Fisher’s webpage. My website would take my story and divide it into smaller paragraphs, placing hyperlinks throughout the text providing backstory, extra information, and insights into characters’ psyches and motivations.

As I just mentioned, one of the primary features of the e-lit version of my story would be hyperlinks. The hyperlinks would be based off of selected words in my story and would direct the reader to other sections of the website, which would include more information behind either the story’s inspiration, or the character’s mindset and motivations. For example, the word “tear gas” in my story might link to a diagram of the way that police officers are trained to fire tear gas in riot situations, as an example of explanation; in a contrasting way, the phrase “beads of sweat” might lead to a second, shorter narrative describing why Pete was nervous and contributing to the character’s overall ’roundness’. These links would serve the purpose of both educating the readers and contributing to making rounder, more relatable characters.

Another feature of my e-literature would be the images used and the website design. I found Caitlin Fisher’s website to be interesting, as the haphazard and sporadic images really created a unique style that I feel would be very effective in demonstrating the chaotic and dangerous nature that I tried to create with my short story. My e-lit would feature pictures of riots and images of items used in my story, distorted and altered to create a reading environment more in tune with what my narrative intended.

Additionally, my e-literature would include embedded videos or .gif images of riots taking place and police officers making arrests. These videos would be placed in the corners of the screen, even slightly out of view so as to not distract from the actual text of my narrative. Again, these would serve the purpose of creating a really solid image in the reader’s mind of what Pete is going through and why he may have acted the way he did. This would ideally create a stronger reaction in my audience, and in my opinion, create a better story experience.

A fourth feature of my re-imagined narrative would be an incorporation of social media, such as facebook and twitter. Essentially, I would have screenshots of tweets and status updates of imaginary mob members, describing the riots and the events of my narrative in a more common way. This would create a greater connection between the reader and the narrative in my opinion, as the audience would recognize the screenshots and be able to imagine an event like the riots actually happening and how the community might actually react to them.

The final feature of my e-lit would be more difficult to do, but I was inspired by the e-literature “Whom the Telling Changed”, which was a text-based interactive story where the reader controls what part of the story is told at what time and progresses the narrative themselves. Ideally, my e-lit would include some interactive feature (maybe written in java?) that would allow readers to ‘discover’ the next event by directing Pete’s actions, such as “exit van” to progress to the part of the story where he is facing the mob, or even give the reader the choice to pull the trigger on the perceived assailant or not. This would add an element of interactivity to my story which I feel would really captivate the reader, and I believe it could be incorporated without losing the previously mentioned features as well.

Overall, I feel that those five features could really create a successful narrative and make my story much stronger than it is.

Five features of e-lit that I’d like to use for my story, “Let there be light”:

1) I’d use Flash to animate a candle.

The candle was a big part of my original story, what with it being the central motif that lit on to symbolize hope at the end. It would be interesting to have, possibly, with each paragraph of the story, a candle accompanying it that attempts to be lit when the paragraph turns, but is extinguished immediately. The effect would definitely bring the candle to the forefront of the reading minds and reflect what’s happening in the story, both physically and figuratively. If played right – and I see the paragraph on the left and the candle on the right of the screen with forward and backward arrows under the paragraph that can advance a page – it could be a very subtle reminder of the themes of the story that wouldn’t be present otherwise.

I want it just as subtle as the trees were emphasized in the “Little Red Riding Hood” e-lit in the first collection that we read last week. Just slightly moving back and forth.

2) Audio voiceover

Since in my story, the power is out, it could be cool to have the audio narrating the words (because it can’t appear since there is no power and it’s all darkness) but every time the word “light” comes up, the word “light” in golden yellow flashes onto an otherwise black page.

The effect would again emphasize for the reader the importance of the metaphor but also give a nod to the setting and the importance of the power outage to the story.

3) Audio of everything as it happens, but narration on the page

The narration will move with the clicks of arrows, but the narration will be synced with audio of things as they happen. The patters and crashes of the rain; the creaks of the floorboards in the house; the thud and breaking of glass when the tree crashes into the living room, etc. It would be interesting to add this background noise.

It would paint a better picture for the reader of what’s actually happening, just as radio does, and make him/her feel as if they are there. It is also more engaging for the piece as a whole.

4) In the e-lit “Twelve Blue” from the first E-Lit collection, the story comes together by snippets pieced based on the clicks of your mouse. One click somewhere can take you to one side of the story, and another click will take you elsewhere – sort of like the choose your own adventure. I want to borrow that “choice” element of randomness but with photos of the rain. The story progresses traditionally, but depending on which photo is chosen, the visuals tell a different story each time.

This will emphasize the power of light and continuity in the storm and yet the chaos of the rain and the predicaments it brings, which is a side unexplored in the plain text version.

5) Embedded video

If there’s a way that I could replicate the emotions of the rain juxtaposed with the emotions of Johnny in the story through video, I want to do that. I’m thinking with a color, as the text flows in a voiceover with the video, the frequency of colors appearing on the video screen will ebb and flow to the tide of the rains. For example, in heavy rains and high emotions (such as when the tree crashes), the colors on the video will be dark and fierce. But at the resolution, the colors will be few and will be lighter, happier.

This is a totally new reading experience that adds color and a sentiment of higher chaos and higher stakes to the story. The visual element brings out the emotion and the action in the story and will emphasize climaxes and ebbs and flows in the story better than any other medium described previously. It will shape the story and really connect the dots for the reader in terms of why it was structured in that particular way, showing them how it all comes together in the end.

http://mith.umd.edu/digitalstorytelling/2012/09/11/literally-a-hat/

If I were going to create an E-lit version of my narrative I might add:

1. Images. Definitely. Most of my detail got cut out of my story due to the 500 word limit. So, I’d show the room that was being investigated, to set the scene. I originally had a whole paragraph dedicated to this detail, but *pokes above statement*. Next, I’d shown the cards, since my character makes such a big deal out of them. And maybe I’d add in a couple other images, too, just to break up my story a bit and slow it down.

2. Hyperlinks. Another must-have addition. I make two reference to outside material that people who haven’t seen them would understand. The first, a reference to the 4 am video we had to watch for week 2; so I would link to that. The second, a funny bit from one of my favorite TV shows, Psych (my character is also inspired by Shawn and Mary from Psych, as well as Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who). I would include a link to the IMDB quote page for this episode (EDIT: IMDB didn’t have the quote I wanted, so I submitted it, but it’s taking forever for them to review it, so in my actual e-lit, I included a link to a video of the scene).

3. Video. As I mentioned above, I referenced a Psych episode, and so, at the very end, I want to include the adorable scene in which it is revealed that Mary actually did make a paper hat for a special friend named Ben.

4. Italic text. I’m a big fan of sarcasm and emphasizing words. But this is hard to get across in writing. Italic text is one of the most common ways to get the point across. “So what did you think of it?”

5. Color. I’m a bit undecided on this one. Color is important; it can set the mood and highlight key words. This is seen in the week 3 reading, These Waves of Girls. The author uses vibrant, neon colors to make everything seem really strange, and wacky. However, I don’t think this is especially important to my narrative. I don’t really have any key words, and I admittedly wasn’t really thinking about mood when I wrote my narrative, so therefore it doesn’t really have that either. But if I wanted to add one, color is what I would use to do it.

And here’s my E-Lit version! http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~ccummin3/LAH/LAH.html

I wrote The Shot as a thought provoking, first person narrative that follows a thoughts, actions, and reactions of a futuristic sniper protagonist who has been tasked with assassinating a prominent General at a major communications outpost deep in enemy territory. The narrative would greatly benefit from being converted into an E-Lit because the various properties of the style would enhance the audience’s ability to perceive the main character’s emotions, facilitate a fluid progression of the plot, and provide a more vivid depiction of the narrative’s setting.

As we discussed in class, one must balance these traits so that they enhance the work, as opposed to either distracting the reader from the intended effect or overwhelming them entirely. Having established this constraint, I went back through the pre-class assignments for the week and examined them again. After some more exploring, I determined that the six primary elements of E-Lit that I would add to The Shot are:

1. A musical score
2. Story Segmentation
3. Background sounds
4. Hyperlinks
5. Images
6. Video

The first item I would add would be a musical score, that is, orchestral music that plays in the background in order to superimpose a mood on the story and anyone who delves into it. My inspiration for this actually came from the title page for “These Waves of Girls” which features laughter played in a loop. However, I would utilize a more ominous tone in order to reinforce the gravity of the narrative for the protagonist; a mission that he has prepared for months, even years for is about to reach its pinnacle. Having an orchestral song with a long buildup playing in the background would hammer home the intensity of the moment.

Although the story itself was relatively cliché and dull, “The 21 Steps “ intrigued me because of how it utilized a progression of short, semi-independent narratives to depict a much larger story. This style seemed to place a much heavier emphasis on the significant of each of the protagonist’s actions than a traditional narrative would. In order to emulate this same effect, I would break up The Shot into several segments that could both function on their own and still maintain the integrity of the plot as a whole. Moreover, the story takes place in a single location, so I would be inclined to allow the reader to transition between segments by simply clicking a button that said “next”.

Since the story follows a sniper, who by trade must operate under a veil in order to survive, let alone complete a mission, I would like to include several sounds in the background that would play as the protagonist readies himself to take the shot. For example, as he locks the stock of the rifle onto his armor, or draws in his breath to take aim, the corresponding sounds would play in the background.

Furthermore, I would like to utilize hyperlinks to convey the frustration the protagonist undergoes when things go awry. As the notes suggested, I would prefer to structure several links that would operate in a roundabout fashion, in addition to others still, which would lead the reader to various dead ends. This would stimulate the main character’s frenzied progression of thought and allow the reader to experience similar tumult. I would also hyperlink to images that could enhance the seriousness of the moment, such as a link to an article on the torture of captured spies.  In addition, I would like to hyperlink in some “Easter eggs”, which would reveal where my inspiration for the story came from. This would be accomplished using techniques similar to those used in the E-Lit “The Possession of Christian Shaw”; in other words, embed links so that they do not become apparent unless a cursor is moved over a certain word. However, my programming skills are just above those of an Easter egg, so I’m not sure how much of this I could actually accomplish in the first place and may need to stick to the basics.

As the famous quote goes, “A picture’s worth a thousand words”. Using relevant imagery at the proper time can go a long way in establishing a great foundation for the audience to construct a relationship with. The main character is a sniper in the distant future, fighting in equally distant environment. In order to help the reader to better perceive the setting, I would like to include several images to help clear up any issues with the environment that could detract from the story as a whole. Specifically, I would like to include a picture of the protagonist as well as a picture of the mountainous environment that would serve as the background for the E-Lit.

Finally, I would absolutely embed some videos to the E-Lit in a similar vein to the way I would use the images in terms of setting the stage. However, I would use them to show the flashbacks of events in the past the influence the plot, especially the speech made by the sniper’s instructor that plays a vital role in how he handles the crisis.

Last week I posted a second person point-of-view narrative about driving home during a rainstorm.  Because second person forces you into being the main character, I think my story would transfer well into an e-lit because the e-lit features would really enhance the reader’s experience.

I think a really cool feature would be to make the background animated, perhaps dark with flashes that imitate lightning strikes, or perhaps an animation of rain.  Doing this would bring the setting of the story to life by literally “setting” the story in the bad weather.

I also think sound would be another great feature to add.  There are so many sounds that could be used for my story—car horns, rain, wind, thunder.  I think the best way to accomplish this would to be if the whole narrative was actually read aloud through an audio file, that way the specific sounds could be timed correctly in the story.  This would really help pull the reader into the story.

I have always been a fan of changing font styles in stories.  I find that certain fonts almost have “personalities” to them.  In my narrative, I would bold, italicize, increase the size, decrease the size, or completely change the font for certain words.  For example, the word “heavy” could be bold, “storm” could be in a jagged font, and “conquered” could be enlarged.  This technique puts emphasis on specific words, forcing the reader to give them more thought, thus impacting his/her reaction to the story.

One of the features of the e-lit “These Waves of Girls” that I really liked was how certain sentences were hyperlinked to a new page.  It was a great way for readers to explore the different stories. I think this would also be an interesting feature to add to my narrative as well.  I would use the hyperlinks to go to a new page each time the setting/distance changed.  For example, the first part of the narrative takes place in a parking lot.  I would hyperlink the last sentence of that part to take readers to a new page, which would be the highway.  Doing this would actually take readers on a journey themselves.

Lastly, I would also incorporate images into my narrative.  This actually ties into my previous idea of adding hyperlinks.  Every time readers get to a new page, the image would change.  I would use an image representative of the setting at that time in the story.  So the first page would have a picture of a parking lot at the top of the page, and then the second page would have picture of the highway.  I think it would be even more effective if the picture were taken from a first person point-of-view.  So the picture of the parking lot would be taken from the perspective of someone sitting in the driver’s seat of a car parked in the parking lot, and the second page would be taken from the perspective of someone driving on the highway in the rain.  This feature, just like all of the ones previously stated, would be effective in forcing the reader to truly imagine him/herself in the story.

When we first received this assignment I was confused as to how I would potentially go about transforming my narrative into an e-lit, but after much thought I was able to come up with some of the features I might include:

1. Embedded Video: The video clip would highlight a key component of the narrative: the daughter being kidnapped.  The clip would thus show an instance where a child is being taken.  Those this may seem a bit vague, the purpose of the video clip is to, in a sense, put a face to a name.  Simply put by using this video footage we are grasping the reader’s attention and making them more involved and engaged in the narrative.
2. Linked Image: The image would depict the husband and wife embracing each other after hearing that their daughter has been kidnapped.  With this image I would link it to a page where all the reader saw was a dark screen with the words, “What would you do?” scrolling across the screen.  This effect would get the viewer thinking and putting themselves in the shoes of the worried parents and have more appreciation for the narrative overall.
3. Bold Text: When it comes to using bold text I would incorporate this effect with startling U.S. facts on children being kidnapped in hopes of “waking people up” and informing everyone about important issues that people in our country may face.
4. Italic Text: As for the italicized text I plan to use this feature, at the end of my narrative e-lit on an inspirational and meaningful idiom that ties into the theme of family and/or hardships and overcoming them.
5. Sound: My plan for the sound is to a have a child calling out for help, but no one is there to help or hear him/her.  This feature, in my opinion, is guaranteed to make the story come to life!

This past week I read the e-lit titled “Storyland.”  Storyland was based on a computer generating a plethora of different stories.  While reading story after story, I realized that Storyland kept me engaged as to what was going on.  The fact that each short story was different added to the engaging aspect of the e-lit as a whole.  When it comes to my “hypothetical” e-lit I imagine it to be engaging, as well, but on a more serious note.  Since my narrative incorporates such real life events, my interactive feature(s) will not only keep the reader interested, but involved and thinking, which is something Storyland does not necessarily do.

E-lit Camille’s Wake-up Call

My story was a narrative of the trials and tribulations of getting out of bed in the morning as a student. I think this passage would definitely be enhanced if it was turned into an e-lit. One of the main points brought up in the feedback I received was that my narrative needed more paragraphs to separate the action and provide a smoother flow. For the e-lit, I would split it up into more paragraphs describing each sensation and have the viewer click next or scroll.

The background of the interface would start out as a black background that would then fade in and out of focus of a dorm room. First, the sound of the alarm will start playing and gradually grow louder similar to that of a real alarm. Then, the room would fade in and out of a blurred focus, simulating when one is trying to wake up and open his/her eyes.

As the narrative continues, the screen would get clearer as it focused. When the story reaches the part where the narrator almost falls back asleep, the screen will fade to white and shift to an embedded video showing a dreamy scene of a bright, sunny day and trees.

The screen returns to darkness when the video ends as he/she comes back to reality with the alarm ringing again in the background. As the reader tries to get out of bed, purple and green dots and splotches will cover the screen similar to when one gets dizzy from suddenly getting up.

The scene will then focus on the desk, where the reader can click on the phone and turn the alarm off. As the reader scrolls down, the screen will focus on the  window. The reader can then click the window, and the screen will then zoom in so it looks like he/she is outside. The sun will slowly rise and flood the screen with white.

The words will also come at different speeds during the narrative. In the beginning, they will be kind of floating around and a little jumbled similar to that in . This is supposed to simulate the flustered state of waking up. The words will continue to be obscured as the narrator struggles. Towards the end, the text becomes still and clear when the brain is finally awake.

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.

Initially, I thought this narrative would be difficult to convert into a piece of E-Lit; but after mulling over the possibilities, I realized there are a lot of elements of E-Lit that would add substantial depth to the story.

Because this story is about a race, it would be ideal to have it formatted similarly to The 21 Steps. Allowing the reader to see where the competitors are at all times on a map would heighten the sense of urgency the narrator tries to convey. The map would have to be a much smaller scale than that of The 21 Steps, as the runners only cover a span of about 3 miles, and there would have to be two paths to follow instead of one–but the paths will be very close since the runners are neck-in-neck. Every several hundred feet they move, more blurbs of text will show up, continuing the story.

Next: audio. A major example of imagery in the story is the description of the sounds the narrator’s shoes make as he runs. “Squish. Thud. Squish. Thud.” I can image how effective it would be to have that sound sequence playing while the reader reads. The sounds could easily be synthesized and played in a loop which would begin the moment the page was opened, diving the reader straight into the action. The pacing could speed up when the reader reached the part of the story where the runners reach the final half mile of the race and accelerate.

Another element would be hyperlinks. These would be especially effective in construing the backgrounds of and the relationship between the narrator and his main competitor Derrick Smalls. A link on Derrick’s name could take the reader to a page with Derrick’s profile, listing all of his (fictional) statistics, honors and awards. Since the reader really does not know anything about Derrick other than he is fast and he beat the narrator in the previous year’s race, this would allow the reader to gain some information about why Derrick was such a fierce competitor and why it was so important to beat him. The same would be done for the narrator. What would be most sufficient would be these links opening up sidebars on the screen, so the reader may still “watch” the race as he or she reads up on the runners’ stats.

Video would be a fourth E-Lit device that would transform this story. A video that shows (probably in animation) the race from last year when narrator lost to Derrick by two mere seconds would give the reader stronger contextual insight.

The final E-Lit feature would be a choose-your-own-adventure ending. When the reader gets to the part where Derrick trips and falls, the reader then will be given two choices: continue the story with the narrator going on to win the race, or, the actual ending,with the narrator forfeiting and helping Derrick get up.Two very different morals can be achieved this way.

http://mith.umd.edu/digitalstorytelling/2012/09/09/struggle/

My story, “Struggle,” is a first-person narrative about a character trapped in the dark struggling for freedom, and when he finally finds a way to solve the dilemma, it turns out that “he” is a butterfly that breaks through a cacoon and flies away.

As discussed in Thursday’s class, e-lit succeeds when it manages to create an interaction between the reader and the story, but it fails when the reader gets distracted by overwhelming digital effects. After going through the readings again, I’ve listed out five features that I want to include the most in my e-lit:

1)   Flash
Fisher incorporated Flash (or some sort of animation) in the background of “These Waves of Girls,” which inspired me to try similar techniques. When the reader enters the website for my story, he or she will see a dark gray background. Then a thin, black horizontal line will appear in the middle of the page and gradually expand both upward and downward until the whole background becomes black. This effect represents the viewpoint of the main character when he opens his eyes and finds himself in the darkness. The reader may be able to relate to the character more if they share the same viewpoint.

2)   Sound
As the first effect finishes running, a play button will appear on the bottom left of the page, and when the reader clicks the button, he or she will hear the sound of a person breathing heavily. It allows the reader to feel the fear of the character, but if he or she thinks the sound is too distracting, it can be turned off by clicking the button again.

3)    Links
I will break up the story into short paragraphs, put them on separate webpages and create links to each on the homepage in chronogoical order. I will not make the links open in new windows because the readers might be distracted by the pop-ups. However, organizing the story in such way helps the reader follow the plot, a function similar to that of the number labels for comic storyboards.

4)    Images
For the last few paragraphs of my story, I would like to include images, such as pictures of a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, on each webpage to give the reader a better sense of what is happening. The reader may be surprised when he or she finds out that the main character is a butterfly, and the images that appear on previous webpages may serve as a hint.

5)    Video
On the webpage for the last paragragh, there will be a YouTube video taken from the perspective of someone moving outward in a cave toward the sun. The video also attempts to draw the reader’s attention and help he or she relate to the main character.

“The 21 Steps” failed to establish a connection with its audience because Google Map presents buildings with a high angle shot rather than a normal person’s perspective. It also omitted details that the reader might find interesting; thus, the purpose of making the story an e-lit is obscure. This is why I choose to take more of the reader’s feelings into consideration as I design my own e-lit.