Distant Visualization

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5892811/Welcome_to_Sim_City%2C_TN%3A_Where_the_View_is_Deadly

After playing around with the site a bit and fiddling with the font styles and color choices I finally created a visual that I really liked, but there was a problem.  When I looked back at the overall layout of the picture I soon realized that sure, it was eye catching, but it did not capture the main idea of the original written story.  There are words that were larger than others that should have been in a smaller font and vice versa.  The premise of the story was about how my character Laila decided to pick up and move because she needed change.  She made the choice to move to a town in TN where she quickly becomes friends with a woman named Narelle and over time she meets this guy named Isiaic and well, the rest is to be determined.

With that said, it is evident that one main aspect missing from the distant visualization is the mention of the name Laila.  On the other hand there are things that the visualization got right and that were pertinent to the story.  For instance, the mentioning of Tennessee, and the citing of the words moving, time, Sims, home and even deadly. All of these words are key to the outcome of the story as mentioned above.  Without them the story would not have been what it was originally written as.  Although the visual is quite cool and extracts what it believes are the main words of the written piece there is still something about the written word itself.  When you pick up a story and start reading line by line, you as the reader begin to fluctuate your voice where you feel it’s needed in order to fully grasp the meaning and feeling the story is attempting to portray, but you cannot do that with the visualization.  With this you basically have to read between the lines in a sense and hope you get the full meaning, but the truth of the matter is that no matter how long and hard we try, it won’t be the same.

As for a new distant reading tool, I believe that my concept would be simple:  a tool that REALLY grasps the main concept of a piece of work to the point where if somewhere were to view the visualization they would fully understand the entirety of the story as if they were reading a written story.  But, until then, we guess we must take our fares as we find them and stick to what we know!

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