http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5895626/Sam_and_Zombies
I chose to visualize my “Baptism of Death” narrative from week four for this assignment. Making a connection between the text generator and details underlying the narrative may seem easier because I knew the inspiration behind the story. I assumed that the largest words would be those alluding to zombies and some sort of chaos: I was partially correct. The most prominent word was zombies while a few of the smaller words do reflect chaos.
To someone looking at the Wordle, the largest words may seem disconnected. Those words are teleporter, zombies, room, elevator, leg, and Sam. The accuracy of these words is very good in mentioning the main subjects of the narrative. By connecting the larger words, the viewer of the Wordle may believe Sam comes in contact with zombies, a teleporter, and an elevator at some point. Unfortunately, the words do not reveal any clues about any details describing actions within the story or the significance of the larger words.
The smallest words provide the details surrounding those important parts in the story. Words such as running, pistols, American, and blood suggest an environment with war or some kind of chaos. Surprisingly, these words help explain some of the questions left behind by the larger words. By connecting the smaller words, one may believe that an American is running with pistols and interacts with blood in some way. Combining this inference with the inference created by the large words, a possible connection between the words may be that an American named Sam is running from zombies. This explanation would also clarify what blood has to do with the story and why chaos is apparent.
A distant reading tool I think would be very helpful is a tool similar to a search bar that can search for possible sources of inspiration behind a story. The first thing that comes to mind when I want to search for the connection between words and phrases is the Google search bar. In some cases, the search returns results directly related to what I searched for and people or ideas that may be associated with it as well. What if a distant reading tool incorporated this into what words appear on your screen? An entirely new story could be created by linking the most popular words in returned articles by Google. If those words were glowing or somehow looked different from words in the original Wordle, it may help viewers decipher some hidden messages that could be associated with other sources of inspiration. I did this for my own Wordle. I typed the largest words in Google and the list of articles that appeared were all connected to the game “Call of Duty” which was my inspiration for my story. By connecting that game to the words seen in the Wordle, the visualization may be even more effective.