Ten things about 303

1. In this class I learned quite a bit about the construction of a transmedia narrative, and how to weave a story across several different platforms.
2.  In this respect, I learned to take different aspects of audience interaction into account: for example a comic would generate a varied response that an interactive visual novel versus a series of blog posts or a radio play. Different versions of a narrative may appeal to different audiences for the way they engage the viewers or players.
3. I had the opportunity to get a closer look at scope and world design, such as campaign settings for an RPG or the world placed before a player in a video game. 
4. The audience will pick up on what it wants to see, so leaving multiple story threads to work with laying around, or multiple "Chekov's guns" is necessary. The audience should have the opportunity to truly affect the story for it to genuinely be an interactive piece. As such, the structure of the story and possible endings should account for this.
5. To make a story seem more authentic, artifacts and story archeology are aspects that I would like to include more in my personal works in the future. Making the audience work for and participate to obtain more information is a method I really like the idea of, but need to come up with more ideas of how to best implement them in my writing.
6. Expanding on this point, it is worth thinking of the audience's role in an interactive work. Do they have a perspective character? Are they outside observers stumbling into something already in progress? This is a big question to consider in the construction of a piece and how it will unfold.
7. Sense of time factors greatly into the participatory element. I hadn't considered this much before, but it strongly influences the interaction if they see event occur as they happen versus being informed of what happened after the fact.
8. Alternate continuities are a concept I've been familiar with since reading comics that differed from the television adaptations, novelizations of episodes that were never officially translated, or alternate universe video releases of stories I already knew and loved. The important thing about these aspects are keeping your continuities straight via production documents.
9. Certain aspects should be constant in all versions of the universe. Characters should each have a distinct voice to ensure they are recognizable to the audience and seem more real. This is applicable to all styles of writing, but in an interactive work it is important to have your character appeal to the audience so they will want to engage with the work.
10. I had some experience with writing a production bible before, but this class made me more acquainted with having to do these things according to a production schedule. Now if only the rest of my creative group in Charlotte could pick up on this.

Alcyone for the rest of the semester

Alcyone is established as a character and in contact with the MAPI group now. She could stand to comment more on the other blogs. Later on I will be recording audio posts for her, possibly some interaction with Fachtna as well. I can't be her face, but I can give her a voice with a similar accent to the one she would have. Her parents will be locating her blog soon and hounding the MAPI members for information, as well as accusing them of being a satanic cult that has kidnapped her, telling her that they will take her home and heal her of her "demon possession." She will continue her meetings with other MAPI members, hoping to gain a support network in her new home and using her sensitivity to spirit presences in a manner to help others. I need to do some more posts that would highlight her new found happiness and freedom in Morgantown versus her troubled home life in Pikeville. She should probably take some photos of supposedly haunted places and things she's encountered on her own as well as with the MAPI members. I will need to create email accounts for her parents to harass the MAPI members by posting on their blogs, and I see obnoxious angel referencing screen names and yahoo addresses.
I hope that our CAC associates could work some with some graphic elements to add to her upcoming voice posts. Some artwork of her and Fachtna would be a good thing to add to her blog. Some of Alcyone's medical documents regarding her condition and maybe some props like her family's old Bible with notes scrawled in it, her own religious items like her pentacle. Given the opportunity for another public event, I'd love to have a couple ghostly scares around to get people interested in paranormal activity around Morgantown and the concept of MAPI, maybe some haunting like projections in some key spots where ghosts might be. If focusing on Alcyone's portion of the story, I'd like to have poltergeist activity occurring around an actress portraying her.

Hite's essay on campaign world design

Hite's essay on the design of campaign worlds raises a number of concerns regarding the practical issues of creating a world for your players and readers to enjoy. While it discusses the driving force of a campaign is the story surrounding the players' characters, the overarching story of the world is key in how the players can affect the world around them. What the essay doesn't discuss is that one of the major appeals of pen and dice games is the ability to have a genuine impact on the world your characters inhabit as opposed the the static world you can never change in an online multiplayer game. Additionally, while a World of Warcraft game is always the same given the setting, no two campaigns are the same given the same source material in a table top game since the information and scenarios are simply tools for the storyteller and players to adapt to their own purposes. One major consideration when creating a campaign is the scope of the work. How big do you want to go? Do you want a single world where multiple campaigns can be conducted with diverse geographic areas like Ebberron? Do you want a single setting for a particular genre like Ravenloft or Boot Hill? Is your set of tools a book of advice for a type of game like the highly adaptable GURPS sets for fantasy, space settings, and so on? Will your campaign be large in scale with travel of geographic regions or even time, or will it be within a single place or era?
While the essay notes the contrast of concerns for designers, publishers, and players, the distinction between designers and players isn't so great. The designer's concern is primarily artistic while the storyteller's is practical in its use, but designers are players of these games and storytellers will adapt the rules and information to suit the needs of their own campaign. Publishers concerns are regarding the marketability of a setting and advise against quirky settings. I highly disagree with this suggestion, as the more avante garde settings have yielded some of the most enjoyable games I have participated in. Given the malleability of table top games their use by the end audience, what constitutes a quirky or hard to market campaign is debatable. With the self-publishing resources available, why limit yourself to safe bets in artistic expression?
The five major things to take into account mentioned were as follows:
Fantasy: The ability to indulge the players in the sort of narrative they would want to play out.
Friends: While social interaction is available within an online game, table top games must allow for groups of characters around the same level of power to go on quests and the like together. The essay doesn't remark on how a table top game is a group selected amongst themselves rather than whomever might be online. In my experience this produces a much more enjoyable experience.
Familiarity: The world should have some understandable rules. They don't necessarily have to be the same rules as the real world, but should have their own consistent internal logic. For example, many settings incorporate magic, but how magic works can be handled in a number of ways.
Freedom: You aren't on rails on a tabletop game.  You can roam and the world around you without the constraints placed by a world, while goals may be part of the campaign's story, you don't need to take any particular plot hooks or paths. The actions of the characters have a genuine impact on their surroundings. Actions are not limited to a set of options, to the point of leaving the scope of the original material.
Fuzziness: There should be the ability to fudge some aspect of the world for story based purposes. A character could use their psychic powers or magic to take an action that advances the plot.
While the essay remarks on the scaling of a campaign for characters growth outpacing the setting. It doesn't really take into account that when this happens, the storyteller and players move to outside material to get more resources. You can adapt a Rifts character to a Dark Sun campaign and take it into space opera if you want as the limitations of a preprogrammed world are not in place. This is the freedom of a table top game mentioned in the 5 F's, as well as the modularity of any setting, even if the original designers had not intended for it.

A preview of the Alcyone story

Where is Alcyone in development?

I feel that Alcyone is developing pretty well. She has a very distinct presence in my head, with a sardonic sense of humor and a haunted sensibility about her. I hadn't known that St. Valentine was the patron saint of epileptics, which may call for a post from Alcyone regarding her condition, her lack of a "normal relationship", how her perception of time and reality affects her relationships with other people, and maybe some insight into her dynamic with poltergeist buddy Fachtna, or even her desire to have as much pink colored cake as she could possibly eat. I will need to do more research on epilepsy as well. I have some outside knowledge since two of my siblings are epileptic, but medical accuracy is a point to check.
She'll have some trouble coming her way later on. I intend that some aspects of her past and the people she left behind in Pikeville will catch up to her. Her parents are actively searching for her, and want to bring her back to the church, even if she really detests this idea and everything the church stands for. Will they be able to accept that she is an adult? Do they think that her neurological condition is reason to always treat her as unable to know what is really best for her? Will they still love her knowing she is not a Christian or will they disown her? Considering how controlling and manipulative they've been, did they love her in the first place?

Things to keep in mind

I have found the Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling to be a valuable resource not only for the class project, but personal writing projects as well. A number of the methods referred to within the text could be employed for Morgantown Association of Paranormal Investigators as well as Albireo Star Charmers (a transmedia work in the magical girl genre that I am currently forming with my collaborator in Charlotte, NC).

1.       Story archeology will be an important factor. Alcyone will leave notes on maps aside from the MAPI to talk of her unusual experiences within the town, and the audience will need to look for these, as well as checking the personal blogs of other MAPI members since she longs to have someone to connect with and to have someone believe her about the strange things she see. With regards to Star Charmers, the eventual goal is the have a virtual Morgantown to explore to find components of the plot.

2.       Fostering an audience connection could be done in a number of ways. Alcyone will respond to comments left on her blog, when she gets them. I may have to get the ball rolling on comments by creating some other characters for her to interact with, and demonstrate that she will respond to the audience.

3.       For Alcyone, I would like to incorporate real life objects within Morgantown as part of the interaction. I suppose one easy way to do this could be QR codes showing her trails around town. She enjoys walking in the park and going to local eateries. Curious passers-by would be able to scan the code and find a link to her blog or Google maps.

4.       Expanding on the real life objects, I may try making some props of hers to be left at key locations, maybe art of Fachtna, diary pages, and articles like her decorative cigarette case or “forgotten” items of hers.

5.       With world building in mind, I intend to use Alcyone’s reaching out through her writing and connecting it through the above mentioned techniques to ground it in the town we see around us.  Perhaps I could build a site for the fundamentalist church that her parents attend, old doctors’ records from the hyper-religious quacks they would take her to in hopes of assuring care in line with their religion, regardless of her actual wellbeing and denying her actual condition.

6.       Chekov’s guns, multiple possible plot thread to be activated later, will be of great importance. Alcyone will mention a number of things that strike her as unusual about Morgantown, but how much of what she’s seeing is real and how much is simply in her head? Which aspects will the readers want to investigate?

7.       The element of time is something I still wonder about. Alcyone largely writes about things after they occur, but Star Charmers is intended to occur in real time along with the audience guiding the girls.

8.       Voice is most certainly an element to pay attention to. Alcyone is a foul mouthed Wiccan who is just now allowed to cut loose without supervision of her parent and doctors. She has a tendency to overdo things as a result and overcompensate for her insecurity by acting tougher than she is. She also likes to end her blog posts with “Blessed Be” and indicate the music to which she is listening. The girls of Star Charmers, being young, will be likely to use emoticons frequently, but their tones will be very different. Studious and methodical Maris’s writing will reflect her proper nature and passion about science. Carefree and flighty Estelle writes with a more stream of consciousness style, reflecting her preference for unusual structures and poetry and her love of art.

9.       The audience in Alcyone’s story would have a role as possible pen friends of the young woman, even as she discusses simple things like her favorite films. She has her own email address for interactions now. I may make a Google + account for her, as her email is Gmail based. Within Star Charmers, the audience may take the classic magical girl role of the cute animal companion and mentor for the pair of superhero witches in training, guiding them as they learn magic.

10.   Story bibles are something I have some familiarity with, as I have been working on one for a larger comic based project for a while now. They are of great help when considering world building and all the elements of the story to keep track of for believable continuity. I will need to finish writing Alcyone’s profile and history to distribute among my fellow team members, as well as a number of her possible plot threads.

Alcyone and the transmedia narrative structure

“Cheap, deep, or massive-audience, pick two.” P.106

I intend on going cheap and deep with the Alcyone project. After all, this is a locally focused narrative and I lack a large budget that a marketing department would have at its disposal. Given that she’s a pretty defined character in my head, and one that I have written works with before, she already has a back story and distinct attitude.

“If you background and strength lie in text, then stick to that. Focus on books, blog posts, emails, and updates on social media.” P. 109

Text will likely be my main means of interaction with the audience, as I don’t know very much programming at this point. I may record some audio posts, but if we’re pairing with theater students, I may select an actor to portray Alcyone. I will write up some of her hallucinatory encounters as journal entries and perhaps a few to be performed. It will be for the viewer to determine if Alcyone really have supernatural sight or is simply experiencing hallucinations due to her neurological condition. (She has temporal lobe epilepsy, and seizures can manifest in a number of ways, from feelings of déjà vu and jamais vu, as well as sensory perceptive effects.)

With regards to redundancy discussed on p. 123, Alcyone will communicate frequently with other members of MAPI, partially because having moved recently to Morgantown and run away from her previous connections in life (her parents and doctors), she doesn't have very many friends aside from Fachtna. While she enjoys hanging out with the monster in her closet, his hobbies of bad television and trolling the neighbors only provide so much entertainment and interaction for her. Alcyone is kind of a lonely person. Her desire to reach out may have her grabbing for a number of story elements, or the Chekov’s guns,  just so she feels less alienated. On this note, I may have her interact with audience members through social media for this reason as well. Hopefully I would have the opportunity to get players to mine information from her as discussed in social engineering challenges on p. 143.

Questions of transmedia narratives

1) Star Wars is a transmedia narrative because different parts of the story of the Star Wars universe are told through different media. The novels contain more detail for different story and character arcs, the films tell the main story thread, and the video games and television series (like the Clone Wars animated or even the Droids cartoon) allow different stories to be told within the narrative's world. There's even an online game to allow fans to interact with each other within a recreation of the Star Wars universe.
2) Characterization can be shown through writings from the character's perspective. Illustrations and descriptions of the character's surroundings and demeanor obviously give insight to who the character is. Characters should have a distinct voice.
3) Some suggested means of developing a character concept is to write about types of people who are familiar to you, while avoiding characters who are stereotypical or the same boring or offensively poorly written stock characters. Traits that play against the type aid in avoiding some of these pitfalls. Your character, even if a meant to be boring person, should at least be within an interesting situation. The character should have a history of their own to consider.
4) Characters can be more distinctive with details thought through such as their profile, what they would use as an online pseudonym, their daily habits, and so on. Do they have a particular time of day that they like to tweet? How does your character usually talk? Are there any particular structural patterns to their sentences or words they frequently use? Make certain that your characters don't all sound the same.
5) Extra material can be used in transmedia narratives. Maps indicating where events occurred, letters to or from your characters can shed more light on events throughout your story. Tweeting can cover an event in real time, or an event can be conveyed after it occurs within the timeline.

So who is Varney? Who is Alcyone?

Varney is an androgynous candy demon with enormous claws and a love of art. Varney's preferred pronoun is "they," being a gestalt of many people who died in the forest dreaming of escaping an oppressive small town environment. The collection of energy started within the coalfields, where they stayed for some time, and picked up a thick Appalachian accent and the habit of collecting coal figurines as a result. They are fascinated with how it is formed and the process of its extraction. “Dead stones workers dig from their graves.” They have a fascination with its utility of the corpse past death, the scale of time it represents for how long something has been dead, how old a graveyard is, all part of a major fascination with geology and funeral rites. Varney feels that the earth is sacred, and has great reverence for nature. Of course being a combination of many dead souls that may have been incorporated into a forest spirit, they feel a great connection to the ecosystem.

They advise people who stumble upon their Hobbit hole like cave. Their attachment to nature does not mean that they don't appreciate modern comforts. Most who go there do not expect Varney to have a VHS cassette player, and less so that they prefer it to DVDs. Snack foods are also a greatly appreciated gift that are occasionally given in return for advice or what some have perceived as protection from the forest spirits. Their favorite snack foods are Pitch Black Mountain Dew, barbecue chips, and grape taffy.

It is highly probably that Varney's appearance of being a cutesy mix of a rabbit, kangaroo, and assorted types of candy comes from the fact that many of those who compose their form died as children, leading them to feel very protective of children they find, to the point of vicious violence towards those who would be abusive. To illustrate an example of their humor and easygoing nature, as well as part of their past: "I wanted to be a kangaroo when I grew up. In that respect, I guess I'm doing better than my peers did for their goals. Maybe drowning in the river was the best thing to ever happen to me."

Alternately, I may go with Alcyone. Alcyone is in her early 20s and working as a projectionist. While very clever and sometimes sarcastic, she frequently comes across as in a world of her own. This is largely due to her somewhat shaky grasp on reality. She has been accompanied by the monster under her bed from the time she was about 11, and they've gotten along perfectly well having a similar sense of humor. Her companion, Fachtna, has now moved into her closet in her new one bedroom apartment. Having been institutionalized for a short time, she now knows not to talk about her "roommate" with others or any other supernatural beings she sees, or may in fact be hallucinating. She is kind of insecure, finding her own place in the world, finally free of doctors' orders and the watchful eye of her helicopter parents. Sometimes this insecurity manifests as a tendency to present herself as tougher than she really is and a somewhat aggressive or over the top manner. 

Games and reality

"The brilliant masterstroke of Chore Wars is that it convinces us that we want to do these tasks." While the concept of Chore Wars is interesting and it had the author cleaning at odd hours, and may work better for more competitive sorts, I couldn't be prompted to scrub my bathtub via an online game. Perhaps the participation of her husband is what furthers this response. I do participate in SuperBetter, as an ally to my sister in her efforts to improve her health, and the interaction of the game does prompt me to check in on her recovery more often in addition to our usual chats.Her point of connecting activities to a larger social experience does stand in my own use of this website. Encouraging participation in this manner creates a communal experience and makes an activity more rewarding, both through the interactions and the rewards of the game (such as avatar items or improved character capabilities), as well as tangible real world rewards in the form of the social experience and in the case of Chore Wars a cleaner area or better health with SuperBetter.This participatory factor has educational and work applications as the audience is more engaged, and more likely to pay greater attention and contribute a greater effort. From my own engagement in the SuperBetter game with my sister, to a biology teacher who had distributed a ROM hack of Pokemon with curriculum information added into the dialogue and Pokedex (which the instructor had posted about on tumblr), the benefits of games and social interaction in real life are quite apparent.

Fictional character blog

Currently I'm between working on two particular characters that I had already worked with before. Alcyone is a fierce and witty, but deeply disturbed young woman who is either able to see supernatural beings or prone to hallucinations. She works as a projectionist and lives alone with her possibly imagined roommate, Fachtna, a chaotic creature that lives in her closet. The two have a similar sense of humor, and so they get along fairly well. She is recently released from a mental institution and attempting to find a footing without her controlling mother.
The other possible character is Varney, a gestalt being (a large kangaroo/rabbit/candy monster with large claws) that lives in the woods in an oddly well furnished cave. Varney is composed of many people who died in the woods, dreaming of a better life away from the coalfields where this mountainous forest sits. Varney is easygoing and has a number of hobbies to keep themself occupied: watching their collection of VHS tapes (VHS is their preferred format), eating copious amounts, studying geology and collecting coal figurines. Coal is something of a morbid obsession of theirs, as it forms over vast spans of time from decaying organic matter, as well as the amount of risk people take to recover it, like digging long gone corpses from a hole that occasionally becomes a mass grave. Not that Varney is entirely morbid, but has something of a dark sense of humor.

On Anonymous

Watching Anonymous move from its roots at 4chan to force of anti-corruption activists has been an intriguing transformation, starting with their opposition to the Church of Scientology from antagonistic group of loosely associated /b/tards to a loosely organized collective of activists and an empowering concept of anybody being able to stand up to powers greater than the individual. Given the nature of the group, lacking leaders and formal orders, stating definite goals is not such an easy thing to do. Their methods are using hacking to obtain information outing subterfuge and abuse of power and disrupting their services, selfishly restricting innovation and exchange of information in the name of protection, such as the legislative control given to the MPAA. Anti-censorship activity and generating discussion via their bravado make for major real world changes from a collective with no given directive. Their targets, being authorities who engage in conspiracy and oppression, from the cutting of cellular service at BART station to more readily abuse protesters to the hiding of kidnapping and gang rape in Steubenville, is that the voiceless, the man who set himself ablaze in Tunisia and the 99%, can affect the greater world around them precisely by being nobodies. The lack of a definite identity allows one to freely speak their mind against corruption without the threat of retribution, as well as the ability to more freely organize for protests and other actions.

Who is this?

My online presence is mostly composed of a Facebook account where my real name is used and very little is posted, and the identity of MorgueDweller where I should write more frequently but have too long neglected a different journal of nonfiction writing and the occasional craft tutorial. Using the same alias I also have a highly active tumblr that would be advisable to avoid while at work. I mostly use internet communications to keep in touch with my siblings and collaborate with my twin on projects for Strawberry Tower, a creative group she formed along with a few friends from her art school. I have a few online friends, and don't really go out of my way to craft an alternate identity.