Interactive Storytelling

I conducted this Interactive Storytelling Experiment in 2004 when I was a media studies graduate student at the New School. This project was for a class in Parson's Design & Technology Department called "Narrative and Dynamic Systems" taught by Nick Fortuno.

As a student of media studies, I had been examining ways in which storytelling as a means for learning about one’s culture and traditions might translate to virtual spaces, and how concepts common to games might work within that process. I attempted to create an online storytelling environment, which would test these ideas and examine how systems related to storytelling. The experience proved to be one of emergent storytelling where content was created through the process of engagement.

The Interactive Storytelling experiment consisted of six participants working together to build a new story on a daily basis over the course of one week. The participants used a blog to build their story and were provided with a number of rules to follow during the experiment. The environment placed the participants in the role of both reader and author. It also suggested an interactive way to practice methods of cut up storytelling, as each participant was forced to build on a story element that was, in effect, spontaneous.

The participants consisted of three men and two women ranging in age from 24 to 45. Two were located in New York City, one was located in San Francisco and two were located in Seattle. All of the participants were familiar with the technology and had access to a computer either at home or at work or at both locations. A follow up survey with participants found that they generally enjoyed the experience but wish they had more time to allow their stories to develop.

Participants were asked to work within a number of rules as follows:

• You may add to the story at least one time each day.
• Upon your first entry, please create a character, noting your character's name, gender, age, family status and job.
• You may contribute up to three times a day.
• You may enter between one and ten sentences each time you participate.
• As a group, attempt to solve the task before the end of the day.

All communication occurred via email and participants were contacted before the start of the experiment and then once a day while the experiment was happening. Specifically, participants were contacted every morning of the active experiment to inform them of their assignment of the day. Those assignments were as follows:

Day 1
Task: Save your city from evil
Location: A Bollywood-esque town in India, real or imagined

Day 2
Task: Cast a spell
Location: A small village in the Amazon

Day 3
Task: Acquire something of worth
Location: A country in the midst of revolution

Day 4
Task: Rescue something helpless
Location: A royal court during the Renaissance

Day 5
Task: Invent something
Location: The fjords of Scandinavia

The stories follow in the posts below.

Day 5 Invent something / The fjords of Scandinavia

Day 4 - rescue something helpless / a royal court during the Renaissance

Day 3 acquire something of worth / a country in the midst of revolution

Day 2 - cast a magic spell / small village in the Amazon

Test post.