Great news: the archive has been recognised as one of the best websites in its field for study and research!
For a good proportion of this year I’ve been working with Kate Pullinger and Sue Thomas on building a new resource, an archive of all the Guest Lectures given during the four years of the online MA in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University: www.creativewritingandnewmedia.com. And now the archive has been selected for inclusion by Intute, the primary UK web resource for academic researchers. See the entry here.
The archive contains lectures from theorists and practitioners as varied as Christy Dena, Rita Raley, Alan Sondheim, Caitlin Fisher, and John Cayley… oh, and me too. This resource, which is under the aegis of the Transliteracy Research Group, will be of value to practitioners, students and academics with an interest in transliteracy, digital fiction, digital art, e-poetry, and cross-media. Please feel free to use this archive and discuss it at our Transliteracy Notes Ning community.
Research Questions
Most writing tools and story development processes are designed for writing linear narratives, whether fiction or non-fiction. To develop non-linear interactive narratives, what kinds of tools and processes does the writer ideally need? Unlike, for example, with film/tv screenwriting, there is no established modus operandi for new media writing, other than using flow charts. So do the kinds of linear tools and processes that are commonly available to writers inhibit the development of non-linear stories? Are there any near ideal tools available and if not, how can I adapt what is available to meet my story development needs?
To answer these questions I decided to process the same story idea through a variety computer applications and non-digital methods to see what effect they have on the story’s development. The primary aim of this research is to find answers to my personal needs as a writer (so for example, as an Apple Mac user, I concentrate on software for the Mac) but hopefully my findings will be of wider interest.
During the course of my investigations additional research questions emerged. Because I am presenting this critical study chronologically, I will introduce the new research questions as they occurred to me.
Read More »
