Module 3: Storytelling

Interactive Story

https://greenapple89.itch.io/forest-survival

Above I have added a link to my interactive story that I created using Twine, follow the link and let the adventure begin. As well as a screenshot below to show what the branches of my story looked like.

Interactive Story – Reflection

When starting to create this story I first read over the “Design Secrets of an Interactive Storytelling Challenge” article that was given to us within Module 3. Learning about how “Out of the Blue” was made and the complexity of the story really inspired me and made me realize that this type of storytelling is very fun but can also become very sophisticated and complex. I used how this story was made and tried to model mine using the same sort of techniques, but obviously a lot more simple because some of the things that are going on in this story are way above anything I could do. As I started adding more branches the story began to get bigger and bigger and I too started having fun continuously creating more twists and turns within the story. My favourite part was adding randomize to the story and making it so that the story wasn’t just a continuous line through which a person just presses buttons and gets to the end, I thought that adding some places where mistakes could be made would add suspense to the story, however now looking back at it I might have gone a bit overboard with this idea and may have made the story a little too hard to get through.

I would seriously consider using Twine again whether that be in another course or in a profession/business setting. When thinking about it as an addition to a presentation for a future course, I think that this may be a fun way to keep people engaged as well another layer that would make the presentation more than just someone up at the front of the room speaking to everyone. When I think of using this in a more professional and business setting I think of projects that a business may be completing that has some different end results that could happen as a result of different actions that company takes. I think that using Twine or other interactive storytelling platforms would allow for businesses to assess different end results of decisions that they might make and in turn see how the end results would be, also I think it would be a much better way to conduct meetings rather than just looking at boring slides…

Reflection Question – Meaningful Learning Experience Using Storytelling

When thinking of a meaningful learning experience that started with a story I heard, my brain instantly goes back to the time when I attended a basketball camp when I was young, and the organizer sat us down before the camp started and told us a story about him growing up and playing the game of basketball. What made this so impactful was how he told the story and how he described every little thing in the story, for example during one part of his story he described sitting on a chair and dribbling his basketball between his legs to get better at his ball handling. He described the scene of what his basement looked like, the lighting, the smell, the concrete floors, and the echoing sound of the basketball being dribbled in the empty basement, and if I still close my eyes right now, I can see myself standing there because that is how well he described that scene. This story turned into a very meaningful learning experience for me because it made me fall in love with the game of basketball and want to be just like him because the way he told this story and described the work he put in and how he put it in, it made me truly believe that basketball was the greatest thing in the world and made me fall in love with the game.

Reflection Question – Most Inspiring TED Presenters

The presenter that I found most compelling in the reading titled “7 Storytelling Techniques Used by the Most Inspiring TED Presenters” was Leslie Morgan Steiner. Her TED Talk centering around her previous relationship and how she dealt with domestic abuse and got out of it was very impactful and had me engaged from beginning to end. The part that got me so engaged in the first place was as she was doing the intro she brought out a gun and this automatically caught my attention and probably the attention of people who were attending the TED Talk live as a gun has the ability to catch someone’s attention very quickly. I think that throughout this TED Talk Leslie used all 7 of the storytelling techniques that were discussed in this article very well

• She immersed us well into the story by giving lots of details and setting the scene very well sometimes so well that I was able to picture the scene that she was talking about in my head.
• She told a very personal story, one that not a lot of people talk about (as she mentioned in her TED Talk), and by doing so had myself and most likely most of the audience’s full attention throughout the whole TED Talk.
• She created suspense very well by first describing her partner as a very nice, good-looking, and well-mannered man when she first met him. For me while she was describing him like this it made me wonder how a man who she described like this could turn out as a person who would do such an awful thing. This kept me very engaged and made me want to continue listening and here the rest of the story. And also, while creating suspense she also brought her character to life by describing what he looked like, how he acted, and other details about him, which allowed myself to picture him in my head and sort of put a face to the person that she was talking about.
• She transported us to the scene when she first started the TED Talk by describing her age, her job, her apartment, the details of her green American Express Card, and then finally she brought out the gun that she had pointed at her by her husband. This intro the she provided made the scene that she was setting very clear and I was able to easily  picture her as a young, enthusiastic, newly graduated woman, who seemed to have the world ahead of her on the outside, but within the walls of her home she was constantly being abused and living a very dark life with the person she thought she loved and who she thought loved her back.
• Leslie’s S.T.A.R moment was what made me choose her TED Talk as the most compelling one from the readings for this week. Her S.T.A.R moment had something that no ones else did, which was a gun, and I don’t know about others but when I see a gun in the intro of a TED Talk I tend to listen and stay engaged till the end and also it seems to stick with me a lot longer than the TED Talks that did not have a gun in their intro.
• I liked how Leslie ended her TED Talk and left people feeling positive after a talk that was otherwise very dark and sad. She encapsulated the “End with a positive take” perfectly when she showed her family now and showed others that just because they are in an abusive relationship, doesn’t mean they have to stay in it and there are ways to escape these types of relationships.

Overall, I think that Leslie used all 7 of the storytelling techniques perfectly and that is the reason why her TED Talk stuck out to me and was more compelling than all the others in this reading.

Storytelling Techniques I Have Used/Improvements I Could Make

When looking at the story that I created in this Module, one of the 7 story telling techniques that I think I used the best was suspense. It felt that it was easy to work with suspense when working with Twine and I image the same is the case with any other type of interactive storytelling platform as you are able to leave little cliff hangers on each slide as the reader chooses what choice they want to make and whether or not that would be the right choice or the wrong one.

A place that I think I could improve both in actual storytelling in my day-to-day or professional life as well as while using platforms like Twine is using more descriptive words and engaging the audience and setting up scenes so the audience is more engaged. When I think back to some of the most impactful stories that I have been told in my life, such as the one I was told at the basketball camp when I was young, I can always picture not only where I was, but where the person was and the scene in which their story was told. I want to continue to work at this and be able to immerse people in my stories and hopefully use that in other professional such as speeches or presentations that I may have to do in the future.