Do you find long drawn-out stories a bore?
Like most things these days, stories are getting smaller and that means they need to be succinct. The days of the epic are far behind us in this digital age, at least when it comes to getting airplay, and isn;t that what it is all about?
But what do you do when your story is just too complex to tell in a snippet?
The answer may be to tell the story in a non-linear way. Or, not to tell the story at all, but let folks interact with your story the way they want to experience it. Give them a roadmap to a series of short and even shorter sub-stories that they can sample at their own pace, finding those morsels that they are most interested in, without the long, boring narrative.
The buzz words around this approach include non-linear and interactive, and they come in a variety of flavors.
Non-linear Storytelling
The simplest way to describe this form is to say what it is not. Clearly, it is not linear, and linear simply means the story flows form beginning to end with mounting suspense or interest, culminating in a climax and ending that leaves you feeling like yo had a full meal, dessert included.
When you mix that sequence up, you are talking "non-linear" or not in a straight line. Now, how storytellers do that is what makes this form so interesting. Dream sequences, flashbacks, flash-forwards, and even getting into the mind of the character are all techniques filmmakers and novelists have used. But these can be confusing for some, so let's add another layer, interactivity.
Interactive Storytelling
As the name implies, interactivity involves the viewer or reader in the process of building and experiencing the story.
When we think of interactivity, though, we might think we are talking about ebooks. While they may engage the audience in a series of options on each page, most interactive ebooks follow an overall liner format, whereas the reader/viewer moves from page to page in sequence.
Now, suppose we mix that up a bit. Imagine a mind map of choices, branching off one or more central themes, each with its own short experience. Imagine combining these two types into one.
Non-linear Interactive Storytelling
As we have seen in recent years, television viewers have changed the way they choose to watch their favorite programs, from binge watching, spending hours plowing through an entire season of episodes, to recording and watching only the scenes and episodes they want.
Many of our favorite shows, including the reality types, include a host of characters. Some we like and want to know more about, while others? Yeah, we can do without them. Perhaps we fast forward through those scenes. We might want to go back later and replay what we missed, but we might also just forget it altogether.
Imagine we could follow the thread of one character, or one topic without having to watch, or even know about the others. And imagine we can go back at any time and follow those other paths as well. That's what we mean by interactive and non-linear.
Going Non-linear and Interactive
We are fully immersed in this dynamic interactive approach to telling our clients' stories. One tool we are using is Klynt 3.0. (Check out the sample above and on the Klynt site.)
Klynt is a tool for storytellers, a way of creating an experience for the viewer/reader. It runs on Windows and MAC operating systems and it allows the creator the ability to layer video, text, images, on the screen and develop links to other story components. You can preview your results in a browser and export to a web-ready folder that can be loaded onto your website via FTP.
But the tool doesn't determine the experience; the creative mind using the tool does that, and that's where the opportunity lies. Creating a meaningful experience in a multi-path environment like Klynt requires just as much planning and editing as linear storytelling, if not more. Each snippet of information needs to stand alone, and yet make sense when linked to others.
Some storytellers are not comfortable handing over the reigns to the audience, letting the viewer decide what is important in the story and what is not, so developing one's storylines on such platform takes practice and planning.
The good news is there is help available on the Klynt site with tutorials and webinars.
So, check it out, and start thinking non-linearly and interactively. We are. We believe it is a great way to engage, educate and entertain.
What do you think?
More to come...