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Branching narrative schema and similar narrative structures

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Many mediums have a standard narrative structure, for journalism that structure is the inverted pyramid. The three act structure could almost be considered a meta-structure, as it is used in concert with other formats. However, TV tends to use a certain flavor of the 3 act structure. What structures are common in branching and interactive narratives? The […]

eBooks’ greatest obstacle is that they function like books

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EBooks may be on the rise but they have a major flaw. Their greatest obstacle is that they function like paper books, but that’s not how we read. I don’t know why it is that most eBook reading software now insists on using a pages metaphor. We had been forced into a certain format by the requirements of the […]

Anatomy of a Brand [Brand.Me 101] [Re-post]

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If you’re a journalism student, you’ve heard that you need to become a brand, but what does that entail? What makes a personal brand? Personal branding has become a byword among journalists. Most professionals won’t work for one news outlet their entire lives, nor is that something they want. Personal brands have provided journalists with a cushion, […]

Friday synthesis post: Soundscapes and Bookstores

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I’m thinking for Fridays I need to do something different. Perhaps put out a few quick ideas, pulling on previous posts. I’m going to give it a try today and you should tell me what you think down in the comments. The idea is this synthesis post. Since I’m trying to build new ideas that […]

Thinking about how we could use musical cues with online content

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I’ve been thinking of how to engage more of a participant’s senses as they read printed content. I’d really like to figure out a way to go beyond the standard tricks or video clips and animated text. If you are not familiar with the term, a music cue is the use of sound, usually musical, to signal a performer […]

Quick tip for finding your community on Twitter

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Looking to find your city on Twitter? Try Foursquare. As a community manager, I’m always trying to find members of the communities I’m involved in as they come on to Twitter. Sometimes there are just those people who will never show up in a search. However, you can find more people than you might think […]

How to archive your Twitter Chats with What the Hashtag

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WhatTheHashtag is a great site that lets you grab and post Twitter hashtag archives before anyone else.

Expanding your narrative with parallels [Narrative Artifacts: 3 of 4]

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Building a better story doesn’t require you working in the story itself. Sometimes, the universe around your narrative can offer all sorts of opportunities for greater scope and better engagement.

Of the three artifact types, I believe that narrative-parallel artifacts are the most common. They’re easy to create and deploy and they are the closest transmedia storytelling comes to easy franchising of a narrative. That is not to say that a well crafted narrative-parallel artifact is easy to create, the best are complex and deep narratives in and of themselves and used by prestigious authors, including Shakespeare.

A narrative-parallel artifact is narrative fragment that runs external to your main narrative but still relates to it. It can be accessible to your characters, but does not have to be in their reach. Essentially it is an artifact that runs parallel to your main narrative thread