OK, so technically I have not yet blogged about the concept of “Storytelling 2.0,”* but if you you follow storytelling, you know about Bryan Alexander’s and Alan Levine’s piece by that title in EDUCAUSE Review.
Similarly, Lars Bastholm writes about “Social Storytelling,” which I would consider analogous — or at least closely related to Storytelling 2.0:
Storytelling used to be a closed loop. As Aristotle said: “A story needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end.” Social storytelling flies in the face of that. It is open-ended. The objective is to tell a story in a way that leaves room for the consumers to fill in the blanks, to add their own tendrils to the main storyline.
Bastholm is primarily talking about branded stories in advertising, but I think this open-loop storytelling particularly applies to the types of storytelling we’re seeing in social media and lifestreaming in which we see ongoing snippets that tell people’s stories. Those stories remain open as long as the folks behind them are alive and telling their stories publicly.
I don’t think this kind of open-loop storytelling is unprecedented. The best example I can think of is the soap opera. Story arcs end on soap operas, but the bigger story goes on as long as the soap opera goes on. Sure, many soaps end, but others, like “Guiding Light,” are still going strong after 50+ years.
What other examples of open-loop storytelling are out there? Is there a downside to this kind of storytelling?
*I will eventually blog about Storytelling 2.0. It’s one of those topics that so excites me that I want to make sure I do it justice.
In the meantime, stay tuned tomorrow for a post that relates to the open story loop.
This concept of lifestory as an open-ended thing is always a question in my lifestory writing classes. “Then if I write my autobiography now, I’ll have to write another volume if I live another ten years?!”
The challenge I point out is to write each module, each vignette that comprises an autobiography, memoir, or loose stack of “patchwork story pieces” as a closed loop story with a beginning, middle and end, that may foreshadow another, but be complete within itself, as is a Sue Grafton novel that is one of an ongoing series.
Although that question is asked, I had not put it in the context of Story 2.0, so I’m pleased you brought this up.
That’s a really interesting perspective that I hadn’t thought of, Sharon. Thanks for sharing.
This is a great post — I was a writer on the supposedly ‘open ended’ lonelygirl15 spinoff “KateModern”.
The only parallels of that social show in writing (and production) are the Soap Opera.
We would structure the seemingly open stream with a ‘beginning middle and end’ in the videos over a week. And those weeks would be loosely arc’ed over 13 weeks. If only to bring viewers back to find out what happened next. Watching the episodes now many months later, the loose structure is virtually impossible to spot, and we (the writers) now wonder if it served any purpose other than at time of release of the webisodes.
What was great about “writing at same time as production with an audience free to comment virtually unmoderated” was the ability to effectively be as much of a fan of the show as a viewer, and to confound the expectation of the audience as much as incorporating their feedback, comments, pictures, videos, whatever.
The only parallel I’ve found for that was ‘street theatre’ or ‘standup comedy’ - where you’re effectively performing while the audience can heckle.
The comments were mostly self-policed with the Internet equivalent of the audience ‘shushing’ down unhelpful comments - and for that process to be part of the fun of the show.
I’m blogging about web shows here, if its of any interest:- http://www.storygas.com
Thanks, storygas, for sharing this fascinating example. You’ve opened up for me a whole new world of Web-based productions I didn’t knew existed. Thanks for commenting.