Presentation from the SXSW 2011 panel on Interactive Narratives: Creating the future of storytelling (SXSW 2011) with Andrew Lewellen, Josh Koppel, Esther Lim & Robert Pratten,
Interactive Narratives: Creating the future of storytelling (SXSW 2011)
1. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Interactive Narratives:
Creating the Future Of Storytelling
SXSW Interactive | March 14, 2011
2. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Hashtag:
#ppp
Page 2 Developed by: Robert Pratten, TransmediaStoryteller.com
3. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Contents
Introduction: Defining and Creating an Interactive Narrative…………..4
Andrew Lewellen – Content Strategist, Razorfish
“The Three Little Pigs”: Authoring an iPad App…………………………10
Josh Koppel – Founder, ScrollMotion
The Role of Social Media in Interactive Storytelling……………………28
Esther Lim - Founder, The Estuary, LLC
Participation: Why, What & How…….……………………………………38
Robert Pratten – CEO, Transmedia Storyteller.com
Summary…….………………………………………………………………56
4. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Introduction:
Defining and Creating an Interactive Narrative
Andrew Lewellen
Content Strategist, Razorfish
5. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
What Is An Interactive Narrative?
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6. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
What Is An Interactive Narrative?
An Interactive Narrative
• Has an authored core story
• This could be a mobile app, a print book, a web site. Or nothing more than a sheet
of paper with a Central Dramatic Question, story arc, plot, and character sketches.
Page 6 Developed by: Andrew Lewellen, Razorfish
7. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
What Is An Interactive Narrative?
An Interactive Narrative
• Has an authored core story
• This could be a mobile app, a print book, a web site. Or nothing more than a sheet
of paper with a Central Dramatic Question, story arc, plot, and character sketches.
• Has a social narrative
• The lives of the characters expand into a shared social space where the audience
can learn more about them and become more engaged with the story.
Page 7 Developed by: Andrew Lewellen, Razorfish
8. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
What Is An Interactive Narrative?
An Interactive Narrative
• Has an authored core story
• This could be a mobile app, a print book, a web site. Or nothing more than a sheet
of paper with a Central Dramatic Question, story arc, plot, and character sketches.
• Has a social narrative
• The lives of the characters expand into a shared social space where the audience
can learn more about them and become more engaged with the story.
• Integrates and encourages audience participation
• The plot moves outside of the core story and utilizes a social dialogue to engage
readers with the story and its outcome.
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9. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
What Is An Interactive Narrative?
A dynamic story that allows for personalized
engagement and narrows the gap between writer
and reader.
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10. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
“The Three Little Pigs”
Authoring an iPad App
Josh Koppel
Founder, ScrollMotion
11. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
The Original
Experience
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19. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Revising the Story Assets
• Digital book building turns pages into pixels
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20. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 1: Asset Assessment
Image Characteristics
• 18 Jpegs
• 450 x 420
• Vertical Orientation
• Public Domain Content
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21. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 1: Asset Assessment
Text Characteristics Audio Characteristics
• 18 Pages • 18 Individual Files (Page by Page)
• One paragraph per page • MP3 Files
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22. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 2: Visual Layout
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23. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 2: Visual Layout
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24. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 2: Visual Layout
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25. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 2: Visual Layout
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26. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 2: Visual Layout
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27. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Step 3:
Extra Features Encourage Personalized
Engagement
• Play Modules
• Record Your Own Audio
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28. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
The Role of Social Media
in Interactive Storytelling
Esther Lim
Founder, The Estuary, LLC
29. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
The Role of Social Media in Interactive Storytelling
Esther Lim
Founder, The Estuary, LLC
30. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Social Media as a narrative/engagement platform
Summary
Social Media is a content layering tool to provide extra content to fans
When used as an alternate narrative platform, Social Media can:
• Enrich the primary story through greater character/scenario details
• Extend the primary story through exploration of additional
standalone yet related story universes
• Engage audiences by bringing the fictional world into the real world
through social interaction, shared experiences and co-authorship
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31. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
How do you use social media as a narrative platform?
Activate audience participation
• Use micro blogs like Twitter or Tumblr to capture real time events
unfolding and tweet call to actions
• Use social mobile media to drive readers to specific locations for
more content discovery
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32. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Benefits of using social media in your narrative
Audience Connection and Engagement
• Emotional Connection: Audiences can form “friendships”
with the character
• Community Building: Friendships and community forms
around shared experiences
• Engagement/Co-Authorship: Opportunity for readers to
share ideas about the story that can later be integrated into
future story development
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33. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Benefits of using social media in your narrative
Marketing and Promotion
• Story Awareness and Discovery: Bring your story to where
people play online
• Content syndication/sharing: Good stories create social
cache and are shared across friend/fan networks
• Improves search engine discoverability: More mentions,
hyperlinks, tags and discussions drives better search engine
visibility
• Audience acquisition: Multiple storytelling platforms create
more entry points for entering and engaging with the story and
its community of readers
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34. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Getting started with social media narrative
How do I know if social media is right for my story?
1. Understand your audience and how they consume content
2. Design the level of reader participation you want to build
3. Identify the best social media platforms for your story/character
4. Build natural entry points (“rabbit holes”) in the story that lead to alternate
supporting narratives
5. Leverage platform features to augment story experience
6. Write the experience for all three tiers of content consumers:
• Passive Consumer
• Occasional Participant/Lurker
• Die Hard Fan
7. Allow enough ramp up time (4-6 weeks) for character integration into a
community. Relationships are not built overnight.
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35. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Esther Lim
Founder, The Estuary, LLC
esther@theestuarysf.com
www.theestuarysf.com
@geekgrl or @theestuarysf
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36. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Participation: Why, What & How
Robert Pratten
CEO, Transmedia Storyteller.com
37. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Summary
• Leave a door open
• Good stories work with or without interactivity
• Build on what you know
• Structure for enthusiasm
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38. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Why bother with participation?
• The business case
– lower costs
• marketing is integrated into the product (as it
should be)
– increased sales
• social recommendation & spread
• empowerment of advocates
– engagement is measurable
• The creative case
– audience interaction is thrilling and addictive
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39. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
How do I do it?
• Objective:
– Make it easy
– Make it worthwhile, meaningful, fun
• Steps
– Sketch the experience you want to create
(consider artistic and commercial scenarios)
– Layer your story for different levels of
enthusiasm such that it works for the lazy and
rewards the fan
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40. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Make it easy
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41. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Incentivize participation
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42. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Layering your story
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43. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Additional content for fans
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44. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Content for attraction
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45. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Layers united by story
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46. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Examples
• Lowlifes.tv
– solo participation
– QR codes offer additional subplot
– email-based (alternative reality) game
• Horror Unlimited short story
– play with friends
– two-player twitter game
• 3 Interactive Pigs
– play in teams
– multiplayer interactive storytelling
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47. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
3 Interactive Pigs
• Strong authorship (story is on rails) but…
• Audience decides outcome at plot points
– House of Straw, House of Sticks, House of Bricks
• Pigs vs Wolf – you decide!
• Do the pigs live or die?
• Why bother?
– Fun to create and fun to play
– Facilitate social play which
• strengthens relationships
• raise awareness of other (paid) media
– Reward fans
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48. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
3 Interactive Pigs in Layers
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49. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Call To Action
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50. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Layered Engagement
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51. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Poking friends
Matchword used to trigger Conducttr - tells
@BigBadWolf_2011 to send a tweet to these friends
Page 51 Developed by: Robert Pratten, TransmediaStoryteller.com
52. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Summary
• Leave a door open
• Good stories work with or without interactivity
• Build on what you know
• Structure for enthusiasm
• Lower costs
• Increased sales
Page 52 Developed by: Robert Pratten, TransmediaStoryteller.com
53. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Start writing for audience engagement: www.tstoryteller.com
Robert Pratten
CEO TransmediaStoryteller.com
@zenfilms or @tstoryteller
55. INTERACTIVE NARRATIVES: CREATING THE FUTURE OF STORYTELLING
Summary
An Interactive Narrative
• Has an authored core story.
• Has a social narrative.
• Integrates and encourages audience participation.
• Is a dynamic story that allows for personalized engagement and
narrows the gap between writer and reader.
Page 55 Developed by: Andrew Lewellen, Razorfish