Genarrator

thoughts about teaching new-media narrative

2011-10-24T21:02:00.001+01:00

Since I began my PhD in 2002 (I've finished it now, btw!) I've been thinking about how I might help to expand a readership which enjoys hyper-fiction, and also how I might encourage writers to try using new-media for their creative ideas. Part of the problem has been the complexity of the software needed, but Genarrator has been a big step for me towards teaching hyper-writing. So, below are a few pedagogic procedures which have proven useful and productive in my teaching since Genarrator has been fully functional:

1. Really encourage students to find examples of interactive narrative for themselves - there's so much out there, and they will quite easily find examples they like. Getting students to feed back on the 'likes' and 'dislikes' is a big first step towards students understanding what works and doesn't work for readers. This procedure needs to be backed up maybe wit lectures on history and theory around hyper-text/narrative reception, and even game theory; but there's no really substitute for students experiencing pieces for themselves and analysing various elements of the work they experience. See 2. below for aspects students should be analysing.
2. My own research tells me that the following are essential components to consider - navigation system, purposefulness of hyper-links (these need narrative importance, not just random linking for 'fun'), use of interactivity (is it meaningful or mere decoration?), narrative movement, site orientation tools, freedom of movement for the reader (ie you should be able to g where you want ideally, so if a narrative is strictly linear, it has better be very engaging!), flow (effort and reward should be balanced., ending (is it clear when this has been reached/Most readers want to know this).
3. When they are beginning to conceive narrative ideas, encourage students to think beyond the printed page - depending on their backgrounds and own reading/gaming/viewing/interacting preferences, they will come with a preconception of what an interactive narrative might be, but 'book' is often the pre-set. So, ask them to be sure that what they are creating could not work in print.
4. Planning the 'plot' on paper, by sketching and mapping, is very helpful when thinking about the hyper-structure. Plot is not a pre-fixed structure now, because the writer is offering choices, branching pathways, multiple endings, or 'versions' of the narrative which depends on what elements are read or not read (or maybe viewed/not viewed. or listened to/not listened too - remember this is a multi-media world). Family trees, flow-charts, storyboards are all possible approaches to designing narrative structure.
5. Students should create screen designs on paper, or a digital sketchbook, eg in Photoshop. Assuming your students are not specifically art and design students, simple sketches or even mock-ups done in Photoshop are really useful. Saves time, mistakes, frustration, and focusses on issues of navigation and interactivity, but 'seeing' these on paper before committing to screen.
6. Because I'm working with non-technical students, I encourage 'borrowing' from the web - allow students to openly find images, mp3 files, animations, video, etc, and acknowledge these usages in a bibliography. Certainly they can create their own materials if they are able, but why not use the WWW? Many of the pieces created last year by my BA Communication and Media students used stock images, for example, to good effect.
7. Road testing an chosen audience is vital - students should know who their audience is, as with any narrative medium. The should test their work and write a report on what their reader-testing tells them, prior to finalising designs and content.

New Media Narrative at Bournemouth Univesrity

2011-01-10T22:32:00.002Z

I've just finished marking the first ever batch of interactive new-media narratives to be created at BU using Genarrator. The pieces were all made by final year BA Communication and Media students. They are not technical wizards, but just interested in new forms of writing. Genarrator has been designed for this use, amongst others - to help 'non-technical' writers make a start on interactive storytelling. The work is really good - I'm very pleased with the way the students have not only taken on board some of the key issues about new-media storytelling that I have introduced, but also how well they've used Genarrator - often in ways I hadn't anticipated.

I'll be honest - some of the students used a simple website creation tool called Wix, and also created some great narratives. But overall, Genarrator has proven its worth, and I'm now looking for ways to expand the project. Next I think I'm going to work with local school children.

Poole Literary Festival/undergrad teaching

2010-11-01T00:11:00.002Z

After an intensive spell of bug-testing and refinements, we have been able to really use the Genarrator software in earnest:

At the Poole Lit Fest this weekend (Oct 30/31) I ran four digital wrting workshops for the public in which we talked about interactive writing, and people tried out Genarrator. The software works really well - thanks to Jim ready and Tom Gooday for the technical expertise and skill.

People who came to the workshops obviously found the software easy to use and I'm looking forward to seeing work appear on the homepage.

I'm also now using Genarrator in my undergrad teaching - final year students on our BAComms and Media are making interactive narratives with Genarrator.

It's beginning to feel exciting, and I believe that software like this, which is easy to use and free to access, is one way to expand interactive storytelling into a much wider community.

Look at the Genarrator site if you want to see some early pieces: http://genarrator.cemp.ac.uk/

latest developments

2010-07-02T12:03:00.008+01:00

Haven't posted for a while, but a lot has been happening.

First, Tom, Jim Ready and I have been re-skinning the Genarrator interface and adding functionality to the tool kit. This is all coming along well, and the new version will be online very soon.

Second, I am helping the Poole Literary Festival to run a competion for a New Media Writing Prize. We hope to draw in innovative and interactive writing (as we know, 'writing' includes images, sound and anything else you can put on a PC screen). The prizes will be given at a special awards ceremony at Poole Lighthouse on October 31st, so do please follow the link and enter if you have anything new to say! It can be fiction or non-fiction.

Third, I will be running workshops at the Poole Literary Festival using Genarrator, where anyone can come along and make an interactive story. I'm going to provide resources and give instruction on using Genarrator. It will be fun, and I hope we get a good turnout of people wanting to try their hand at telling stories in new media.

Below is the new-look Genarrator interface.

Liverpool conference

2009-09-12T19:06:00.004+01:00

I presented Genarrator to a group of teachers from schools, colleges and universities, at John Moores University, Liverpool, on 9th September. The online demo of Genarrator's tools went well, and there was lots of interest in the software's potential.

Please have a go at using the software. All you need to do is register for free and start creating.

http://genarrator.cemp.ac.uk/

Ready to beta test!

2009-09-04T15:32:00.002+01:00

Jim Ready has got us to the point where we have a beta-version of Genarrator ready (no pun intended).

Please have a look, and have a go at making a short interactive story. There's a facility to report bugs, and we'd be pleased if you'd let us know what works and what doesn't.

http://genarrator.cemp.ac.uk/

Storytron

2009-07-13T13:53:00.004+01:00

My colleague at Bangor, Astrid Ensslin, alerted me to a writing package called Storytron, devised by a games designer, Chris Crawford. How come I haven't spotted that one before?!

Took a look at quite a few pages about it, and it isn't doing what Genarrator will do - Storytron is a game-making programme. It also actually does some of the story-creation for the writer, once certain parameters have been coded in. It does appear to be aimed at 'nontechnical' writers, but it's still too technical for the community I'm aiming at.

Very interesting though, and does demonstrate to me how much interactive writing is still being discussed and evolved.

Check out these links if you're interested:
http://www.storytron.com/
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/15/storytron-interactiv.html#previouspost

nearly ready for road-test

2009-07-02T17:33:00.001+01:00

Jim Ready, Tom and I met today to look at Jim's latest work on the Genarrator platform. Below are the aspects we need to finalise before can go out for a road-test.

Functionality

1. Generic stage size should be 800 x 600

2. Users should be able to change the background colour of the stage.

3. Maybe have a grid/margins on the stage when creating the narrative.

4. Possibly save the site map, and display with the narrative once published (users could turn this on/off)

5. Make the information bar more prominent and use rollovers where needed.

6. Maybe adjust menu size to scale the width of the stage?

7. Video upload/converting (and have auto play and show player functionality)

8. Publish button (Maybe call it genarrate?)

9. Make sure the website is scalable.

10. Admin/account section (change password etc...)

11. Different permission of log in (user and admin)

Design/Visuals

1. Create icons for each functionality (Layering, Link, Text etc...)

2. Use graphic on homepage.

3. Make it look pretty!

Think that is all for now.

We are aiming for Monday 27th July deadline. We'll meet on that day to show the prototype and discuss the next stages of the project.

latest designs

2009-04-29T10:50:00.006+01:00

Jim Ready, our developer, has sent further work on the look and format for Genarrator. At the top is the home page, below that the writer's view.

We've looked at the functionality Jim has built so far, and we have a good basic system in place now for creating pages, inserting text and media boxes, shaping boxes, keeping track of pages. We need hyper-linking function, and tools for modifying text; the site map generating system has yet to be built, but that's coming soon.

Genarrator visuals

2009-03-27T14:09:00.003Z

Our developer, James, has sent us some initial visuals of the way the composition screen will look to a writer: see the image on the left. Tom, Jon and I have discussed James' ideas, and I've drafted a revised writing-screen design, which you can see below.

We are on the same wavelength - the principle aim of enabling interactive writing for 'novices' is clearly there, and I'm getting excited about the possibilities for this platform.

latest design spec - March 2009

2009-03-11T12:37:00.003Z

Jim Ready's detailed brief including technical spec is as follows, with my notes (x1,2,3 etc) at bottom of page.

'GENARRATOR' PROJECT DEVELOPMENT BRIEF 09/03/09

Aims and Objectives

· To produce an online application allowing users to create and view interactive narratives.

Target Audience

· The project is aimed at anyone wishing to create an interactive narrative, without any prior experience.

Design

· Should be as simple and easy to use as possible
· Should fit on 1024 x 768 resolution with as little scrolling needed as possible.[X1]
· A suitable colour scheme should be used.

Registration [X2]

· Users should register with the site in order to create interactive narratives.
· Registration will require them to enter the following information:
◦ Name
◦ Age
◦ Email Address (should be verified)
◦ Password (entered twice for verification)

Creating Narratives

Users should register in order to create narratives.
Users should be able to add:
Sound
Video Files
Images
Text [X3]
Hyperlinks
Links to other pages in the narrative.
An optional sidebar with links to all pages.
New pages
Page Names (for creation use and use in the sitemap)
A site map should also be created showing the way in which pages are linked:
[X4]
A drag and drop system should be used to allow users to add these items as it is easy to use and will be familiar to most users.
An upload form for images, sound and video will be outside of the flash application (as flash does not have upload options).
A list of uploaded files will be displayed in flash, allowing them to be dragged into the narrative.
Options to resize and rotate images should be included. (Images can also be resized on upload to reduce file size as many users will not be able to resize them prior to upload)
Could be developed to allow users to change the background image.

Viewing Narratives

· Video and sound should have options to fast forward, pause and play.
· Mute button should be included and mute all sounds when pressed.
· Should display optional sidebar with links to all pages of the narrative (to the left of the narrative at first.. if different templates are introduced, the bar can be moved accordingly).
· Previously visited pages should be marked to inform users.

Front Page[X5]

· Displays the latest narratives viewable by the public (name, author, creation date and description, with a link to view the narrative)
· Has options to register/login or link to view/edit your narratives if already logged in.
· Possibility to search narratives.

My Narratives[X6]

· Has list of all narratives user has created with options to edit/delete them.
· Has options to edit user account information.

Technical Spec

· Should run in flash with PHP4 (xml feeds bringing data into flash)[X7]
· A mysql database will be used to store data, images, sounds and video will be stored in appropriate folders on the server

User Levels[X8]

· Admin
◦ Can delete all narratives
◦ Can modify user accounts

· Author
◦ Can edit and delete only narratives that they've created

· User
◦ Can view narratives.[X9]

[X1]No scrolling?

[X2]Tom and I like this

[X3]And images.
Question – what range of file types can be uploaded?
Elements need to be ‘ordered’ ie front to back, control which element lies I background, which element overlays.

[X4]Site map needs to be moveable. ie visually re-arranged to suit the writers’ conception of narrative structure. Also needs to show hyper-linked elements within a page, not page-to-page links

[X5]We like this v much

[X6]Good!

[X7]Good – Tom Ok’s this but Tom will check RackSpace host (php5 used?)

[X8]Maybe call this ‘Permissions’ ?

[X9]Maybe add a comment/discussion facility for readers later

the 'alpha' phase - initial design features

2009-02-25T13:09:00.004Z

(I think that's what they call it anyway) - Jim Ready and I talked through the features of the Genarrator writing platform which we feel we can develop in the first cycle of design and testing, given time and resources. Below are the key features that Jim will build:

For the Writer:
Text entry (in movable/shapeable boxes)
Image import/insert (in boxes)
Video import/insert; video control insert (for end user)
Sound import/ insert - with control for the user (maybe able to be triggered by mouse rollover, or maybe via control bar)
Front-back ordering of element boxes
Hyperlinking from/to page or media element or text element
Site map generation to keep track of and display links (e.g. as Dreamweaver)
menu/timeline/site position view - to be adjustable and placeable on page, by writer
Font choice
Font colour choice

For the end-reader/user:
Site overview always on view
Page/chapter menu on view
Bookmark facility (i.e. where am I now? Where have I already been?)
Backtrack facility (non-linear, i.e not just browser function, but in any direction and able to jump steps)
Clear 'home' page

Looking forward to seeing Jim's designs.

developer appointed

2009-02-21T19:54:00.003Z

We've appointed James Ready to help us design and develop the Genarrator platform. James has done work for CEMP in the past, e.g the Horizontal Boxes project, and we think his know-how and ideas will kickstart Genarrator.

My plan now is to be able to beta-test in the summer term, and hopefully carry out bug-fixes and revisions in time to use Genarrator for teaching in October.

I'm also now building a bid for funding through AHRC, through which I hope to create an original interactive fiction of my own, using Genarrator.

interviews

2009-02-03T13:47:00.003Z

We have advertised now for an undergrad or recent graduate to support the development of the Genarrator platform. We have five applicants and will be interviewing soon. So, hopefully, we can really getstarted on the project after what has felt like a bit of a false start.

Progress?

2008-11-28T12:23:00.004Z

So far, we haven't found a professional developer/designer able to help us get started on the digital platform - one or potential guys have either not had the time right now, or are unsure of the scale of the project. Funding then becomes a factor - but Jon at CEMP is certainly backing the project so that ultimately we will have a platfom called Genarrator which people can use to create and present interactive narratives.

I want, ideally, to be able to get a 'template' up and running by the summer so I can take it out and road test it with undergrads or college or school students. In order to do that, and make full use of the research time I have this academic year, Jon and I considered that if we can't get a pro developer on board soonish, we might go 'back' (in one sense, but forward in another) to the original smaller project - this would entail designing a protoype platform, maybe in an existing software application as simple as Word, which we can test for the various areas of interactive writing I feel are crucial, such as navigation design, meaningful narrative-driven linking, constant-context view, purposeful interactivity.

Then, even if this year we don't get to the point of having a downloadable, uploadable system with a CEMP host for 'Help', design advice, project gallery etc, we will have tested my design and writing prinicples- from that we can go forward next year to the 'bigger' phase.

We're going to meet with Ben Templeton (local web developer) to discuss 'spec', soon - and from there see what we feel we should do to get the platform design underway.

October 22nd latest

2008-10-22T11:48:00.003+01:00

Just had a meeting with Jon and Tom in CEMP (Centre forExcellence in Media Practice), and the project has suddenly made a hyper-jump (appropriate metaphor here, do you think?). It's very exciting, and what Jon proposed somewhat overhwelmed me because I'd been thinking pretty small, and Jon has been thinking a lot bigger.

Essentially, I had been thinking of Genarrator as a small-scale software platform, something we could give away on a CD, which would allow non-techie people to create interactive stories. That's still the main aim, but Jon has opened the project up by suggesting that we create something that can be offered to users via a CEMP-hosted site, an application which can be downloaded, along with the offer to writers of being able to upload their creations to the host-space. That way we can create an archive of cool material which will serve as a display case for others to view, and a record of how our research is being translated into practice. From a CEMP perspective, there would be a financial implication to hosting work, so ultimately a small charge might need to be levied - initially though, users would be offered the software and upload free of charge. And we can still use the application (Genarrator) with partner institutions, schools, writing groups etc, so that interactive narrative hopefully begins to become much more widely practiced and understood.

Finally, we will be able to use Genarrator for the teaching of interactive writing, and it could be used in other pedagogic areas, such as the teaching of self-evaluation, recording students' learning journeys, or documentary and biographical writing.

So, we're going to speak to potential web developers very soon, to see who might be able to assist me (given that I'm being unusually strong-willed about what I want to be built into Genarrator in order to make it usable and productive for writers and readers).

the Korsakow system

2008-10-16T21:46:00.004+01:00

Lizzie Sykes told me about this and I looked it up. It's a software platform for creating interactive films. Looks a bit too complex for my purposes, but nonetheless very interesting and maybe we can use it in some way. If anyone has used this system I'd love to hear from you with your opinions about its usability and whether technically-inexperienced writers could handle it.

http://www.korsakow.com/ksy/index.html

istories

2008-10-16T21:06:00.004+01:00

There appear to be three different incarnations of istories:

1. created for reading on an iPod, using a freeware package called iWriter - pretty hard to work out where this package can be accessed, Still looking. One site which seems to be archiving these pieces is called istorysilver http://netcolony.com/istorysilver/info.htm

2. created for use with a software program costing £99: seems to be tied to the Inanimate Alice series by Kate Pullinger, though that series is available online for free. Kate Pullinger is a well-known writer and has been involved in the Trace project at Nottingham Trent Uni, but this 99quid price tag might stop interactive writing out to a wider community (in my view). However this is a close 'competitor' for Genarrator since it offers easy uploading of images. text etc. I'll have to test this out!

http://www.istori.es/

3. created by MAD studios: a bit difficult to work out exactly what these are, but they seem to be game-like pieces, written with a program, called iStory Creator. I tried to download it, but couldn't gain access.http://www.freewebs.com/mad-studios/

some issues with interactive narratives

2008-10-16T13:17:00.011+01:00

Interactive narrative 'began' when Michael Joyce 'published' afternoon, a story in 1987. It was offered on a floppy disk (now on CD), and was the first piece of interactive literature. There are no doubt other examples around that paved the way too, but Joyce gets the credit for really kicking off the development of an interactive form of fiction that wasn't based on game playing conventions. When you read afternoon you are not an avatar, there are no levels to move through, there is no simulated world, and when someone comes a cropper they stay that way - you can't go back and replay the scene for a different result. The reader/interactor/user is an audience, but a more active audience than usual because he/she must make choices, via the interface, as to which bits of the story to read next.

The author, Michael Joyce, was also a co-developer of the Storyspace writing software (which also provides the reading platform), and is thus justifiably highly regarded in the literature around hypertext/digi-lit/interactive narrative. But in my research, and in some the critical literature, problems have been identified for readers of afternoon and other Storyspace based works. Many interactive narratives using different platforms, for example available online, suffer similar negative reaction from readers. These problems I pursued in more depth, in a systematic way, in my PhD research, and I looked at a range of interactive narratives : the same problems for readers emerge again and again. Here are some of the issues I have identified:

1 If the reader's sense of context in the story is lost, absorption and engagement quickly vanish;
2 If a sense of context in the site is lost, a similar thing happens - i.e. reader walks away;
3 If links don't advance the story in some interesting way, 'reading' soon turns into 'playing', .ie. just trying out the interface to see what it will do;
4 If the navigation system does not allow movement in any direction (compare the freedom of movement in a printed book, for example), interest in the story is soon lost;
5 If something on the screen is interactive, it should be meaningfully interactive, e.g. advance the story or the reader's understanding of a character;
6 Choice must be balanced with narrative movement -there's an optimum amount of choice you can offer a reader before he/she becomes distracted from the narrative;
7 Adequate control over interactive elements is needed - e.g. if there is a video clip on a screen, the user must be able to start/stop rewind, switch off. If a video has to be watched in full every time the narrative is accessed, boredom obviously sets in. The equivalent in reading would be that you have to read the first chapter every single time you open the book instead of jumping straight to where you left off.

There are other issues, but the above are quite central in thinking about the design of the narrative and its interface. We hope that the Genarrator platform (when it's built) will be able to incorporate these features, so that any writer will be 'guided' towards the effective use of them as part of the storytelling process. Good interactive narrative design meshes the narrative to the interface, seamlessly we hope.

So far, so fascinating

2008-10-15T14:20:00.003+01:00

The date is 15th October 2008. We've just got the blog up and running, and I'm learning how to use Blogger-style facilities. Tom Gooday is helping me (a lot).

This is a brief update of where we are so far.

The project was conceived back in the summer, and after some fascinating discussions with Prof Stephen Heppell, and a lot of backup from Jon (Wardle) I worked out what I wanted to do: CEMP needed a project within its Pedagogic Innovation Fund which would add to pedagogic understandings and techniques, and I wanted to continue to develop my research and creative exploration of interactive narrative.

I didn't want to re-run the Portland project (see 'Gallery' for details and examples of the work done there), but I did want to use the experience we'd gained during that project.

What had I learned from Portland? Two major things stand out -

1. Interactive fiction (hypertext narrative/digi-lit -call it what you will, seeing as no one has hit on THE term for it yet) does work. The school kids created really fun stories, with narrative structure and meaningful interaction, in interfaces that were easy for end-users to learn and use. So, in future, if we got the balance between absorption and interaction right, we could make more sophisticated narratives that really grabbed the reader (see my Convergence piece for some reasons why a lot of interactive fiction fails in this regard: http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/12/4/447

2. The concept of a template into which an interactive narrative could be 'poured' worked really well. I'm aware of the dangers of restricting the creative flow: a template could be too constraining, but for 14-year-old not-highly-technical students it was fine. But, from that, I realised that if we could design a template that was as easy to use, but which could be flexible enough for older writers to work within, we might be able to 'launch' interactive writing into a wider population of creative writers. There are plenty of writers 'doing'' interactive fiction, but the platforms are tricky to use: e.g. I've tried Eastgate Systems' pioneering Storysace software, and it's fun, but limited and its interface is not very 'now'.

Talking with Prof Heppell, it became clear that an intuitive, easy to use (for writer and reader) digital platform could also offer learners the chance to tell the stories of their learning 'journeys'. And of course, then my explanation to the Portland kids of interactive fiction being like a journey with loads of paths and side-roads and digressions seemed highly appropriate (clever me!)

So, I crystallised the project into its current form: research into devising and designing a flexible digital platform for writing and reading interactive stories, and of course, the teaching of both. We probably won't use Flash, even though that worked brilliantly in Portland, because it's quite hard to learn as a writer, and we want to be able to give our platform away, to schools and colleges perhaps, and to be able to use it with our own students who might not be skilled multi-media types.

If/when we get a usable platform, we'll beta test it.

Then I'll write about it and do a conference maybe... and then we'll refine it and make interactive narrative as mainstream as narrative in film or books... so far, so very fascinating...

The Portland Project

2008-10-15T14:00:00.002+01:00

In 2006, while I was working on my PhD, interviewing readers and recording their reactions to the interactive fictions I was studying, CEMP offered me the chance to devise and run a project - the initial aim was to extend BU to the local community, perhaps widening access to Media School courses. The content of the project was up to me, and it seemed like a great opportunity to see what we could with interactive narratives: what if we allowed some school kids the chance to run amok with the concept of stories that can be told in all media, and which can be interacted with?

We armed the 14-year-old students of Portland Royal Manor College with digital cameras, DV cameras, Apple Macs, sound recording gear etc., and asked them to write stories that could make use of all these media, and which could be interactive.

I had the support of Jon Wardle and Chris Wensley at CEMP, and the technical skills of four undergraduate students from our BA in Interactive Media. The undergraduates designed two interface 'templates' in Flash, which the school students would be able to 'fill' with their story content. As you will see if you follow the link, one template was a comic-book style, the other a scrapbook style. These allowed the students to write their stories knowing in advance how the interactive screen would roughly look, and build their content appropriately.

For 14-year-olds at the school, the approach I took to explain what an interactive narrative might be was to say that it's like a journey from school to home, but on the way all kinds of things could happen which might delay you, send you off down side roads, you might pop in to see your gran, or be confronted by a rabid bunny (Portlanders don't like rabbits, and don't use the word 'rabbit' either).

I worked with the school to brief the students, and to help them prepare their stories, using print outs of the templates to aid their 'scripting'. Then, in a very busy production week, we did the filming, record sound took photos, wrote words, and filled the templates with interactive content.

Have a look at what the 14-year-old (and our talented undergrads) achieved:
http://www.cemp.ac.uk/themes/other/#Interactive

The Mobius Case

2008-10-14T14:27:00.002+01:00

An interactive narrative created by Rutger Van Djik, on Bournemouth University's MA Interactive Media.
http://media.bournemouth.ac.uk/studentshowcase/work/mobius/index.html
Why do I like this so much? Because it demonstrates several aspects of interface and navigation design which my research has shown to be important to readers of interactive narratives:
1 Easily grasped interface design
2 Clear and flexible navigation tools
3 Always visible story and site context
4 Meaningful interaction - i.e. each link followed by a user will advance the narrative in an interesting/significant way
5 Character development
6 Plot development, no matter what interacting choices the user makes
7 Non-linearity (in this case a circular narrative structure) does not overwhelm the user.

For more information about what I consider to be 'essential' interface and navigation design features, see my forthcoming paper in dichtung digital: http://www.dichtung-digital.org/

the Genarrator project

2008-10-14T11:43:00.001+01:00

Between 2002 and 2007 Jim Pope (it's me really, but I thought writing in the third person would seem more academic) has been conducting research and developing practice in the field of writing and teaching interactive fiction, called 'digi-lit' or 'hypertext' in some quarters.

Jim's PhD gathered data on the the responses of 36 readers to a range of interactive fictions. A preliminary report on the findings is published in Convergence 12:4 Nov 2006. http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/12/4/447

In the summer of 2006 Jim, with the support of CEMP, ran a project at Royal Manor College, in Portland, Dorset, in which groups of school students created their own interactive fictions. The rather wonderful results can be seen here:
http://www.cemp.ac.uk/themes/other/#Interactive

The knowledge of theory, creative practice, and reader responses gained from this work has led to the Genarrator project. The aim of this project is to attempt to develop a flexible, user-friendly (ie intuitive, no-knowledge-of coding-required-by-the-user) platform for the creation of digital interactive fiction.

'Genarrator' is the name we've chosen for the platform, which (if it works so wish us luck) will be able to be used by school students, undergraduates, non-technical writers interested in new media - anyone who wants to create an interactive narrative will be able to start with Genarrator before progressing to other more sophisticated (and complex) software. But maybe Genarrator will do everything anyone will need! Let's see how we get on.

Jim will be researching Freeware and adapting existing platforms to see what can be designed, to make writing and teaching interactive fiction easier and more productive at the point of the technical 'barrier'. We want to 'free up' interactive writing, and progress interactive fiction (and most probably non-fiction too) towards being better understood, better made, and better enjoyed.

Please post your thoughts, ideas, and any leads you might have to other platforms offering writers ways into this amazing area of creative writing.

Jim