New Medium for Storytelling
March 27th, 2008
Last week Penguin Books released We Tell Stories. An experiment in using the internet as the medium for telling stories instead of books. I must say that I am pretty intrigued and drawn in. Every week for six weeks they will release a new story based on a classic and use the internet for telling these stories. The site was developed by the Hon brothers at Six to Start for Penguin, and they have done an amazing job so far. I couldn’t stop reading the first story even though I should have been doing something else.
The first story, “The 21 Steps” by Charles Cumming, based on the novel “The 39 Steps” by John Buchan, was released last week. It is told over Google Maps, and it drew me in instantly. “The 21 Steps” follows the main character, Rick, around London and Scotland as he is forced to deliver a package for a secret organization. As he moves around, his route is mapped out over the satellite view on google maps. Its great to watch him “move” around and see where he is standing, or what he is seeing as he travels. The narrative is told using the pop up bubbles from google maps. What an ingenious and simple way of telling a story using maps. I love it!
The second story “Slice” by Toby Litt, based on “The Haunted Dolls’ House” by M R James, was released on Tuesday and is running for four days. This week they are using a different set of technologies to tell the story. There are basically two characters, a teen, Lisa, that was uprooted by her parents and forced to move to England to get her away from bad influences, and her parents. Both Lisa and her parents have blogs and twitter accounts. The story is unfolding over their blogs and as they tweet throughout the day. The interesting part about using Twitter and blogs is that readers can interact with the characters.
Of course this project wouldn’t be complete with out an ARG tied to it. From the front page, if you click on the white rabbit on the bottom left hand side you are taken down a rabbit hole. Also, through out the first story in between chapters and in some of the text bubbles, you are told to follow “Alice, call 020 8133 8141″. There is a forums discussion here if you want to catch up. Its pretty slow at the moment, so its a good time to join up now.
I am really excited to see what Six to Start and Penguin have up their sleeves for the next four weeks. They have me intrigued.
