Use Twine to create a digital story or work of literary art (or analysis). Before getting started, go to the Twine site and explore. For our project, we will use the online version of the program. Also, before doing any creation, read over the information on how projects are saved.
Next, begin by getting familiar with Twine by watching tutorials and exploring the Twine wiki.
Next, think about the work that you want to create. You can use what you know so far about the Twine platform, genres, and hypertext to help imagine possibilities. Here are the four basic types for the assignment:
- Literary rewrite. Start with a story, film, or series. Compose an extension of the story that continues the existing narrative into the future or that rewrites the ending.
- Hypertext poem. Compose (or adapt) a poem using interactive text and/or hypertext. The poem may use multiple screens or numerous interactions, but should generally be the equivalent of at least a two-page poem.
- Original fiction. You can compose your own story that uses the branching potential and affordances of twine to create interesting pathways and alternative meanings for readers.
- Literary analysis. Integrate a poem, or an excerpt from a work of fiction or drama into the Twine platform. Use the affordances of Twine to guide readers through an analysis of the text. The analysis should include secondary research.
As you imagine and identify possibilities, think about the writing demands and opportunities in terms of language; something with poetry may call for zoomed in work with words; something with fiction might call for description and dialog. Regardless, plan on focusing a good deal of attention on the materials of language and producing engaging text.
The challenge will be to maintain strong language work, while using the fullest appropriate potential of Twine, which we'll go over in class.
You may want to do some planning on paper ahead of time. Or you can use the Twine canvas as a kind of arrangement space for composing.
As you work consider a few things related to the Twine platform:
- Avoid simply chopping up and making a click-through, linear story.
- You can experiment with adding images and other media to the story.
- Think about the narrative perspective as you put together your piece. What are the benefits of a second person approach--"you enter the room"--versus some other perspective?
- You can experiment with some of the more advanced aspects of twine. Try using conditional structures in your projects; play around with timers, explore other options and challenge yourself to think with some of the "coding" functionality of the platform.
A draft of the project is due on February 4th.