A year ago to the day we launched We Tell Stories, an experiment in digital storytelling developed with ARG designers Six to Start. Over the course of six weeks, six writers told six stories based on six classics - but unlike their (and our) usual publishing output these stories were told online, using digital tools to create what we hoped would be engaging, fresh and radically different narrative experiences.
Charles Cumming, for example, told his story entirely on Google Maps - readers can follow his character around the map as he attempts to make sense of the bizarre events that unfold.
Nicci French (bravely) wrote
their story live allowing the audience to see their tale appear on screens around the world, word by word. And
Mohsin Hamid created an elegiac and
fresh digital version of a choose-your-own-adventure story, readers creating their own path through his magical narrative. Sitting behind the six pieces was a secret seventh story which asked readers to solve a
series of puzzles hidden online and in 'the real world' to stand a chance of winning prizes which included a complete set of Penguin Classics.
We got a lot out of the experience of producing this project. We got to work with and meet some very talented people. We learned that our authors enjoy taking on a challenge. Nearly a quarter of a million people have spent over 9000 hours reading the site and we received a ton of nice publicity, most of it very positive, and perhaps along the way we even sold an extra book or two ;-) And this Sunday, in Austin Texas, we were
thrilled to receive the award for Experimentation and, astonishingly, the Best of Show award at this year's
South by Southwest Interactive Festival Web Awards.
Best of all, perhaps, we learnt that it is possible for old school publishers to get out there and play with the cool kids without having our glasses stolen and stamped on. These are challenging times for traditional media companies - as Penguin author Clay Shirky writes;
'the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.'
(note: technically Prof. Shirky was talking about the newspaper business, but the same can surely be said of book publishing). People are discovering new ways of telling stories, sharing stories and talking about stories and if we want to thrive through this paradigm shift we've got to master these techniques ourselves and perhaps invent a few of our own.
We've already taken some of the learnings from We Tell Stories and applied them across our marketing and in the next few months we'll be launching a couple of projects which again push the boundaries in some new ways. I can't tell you much more about these right now, except to say that next time around we're looking forward to reading some stories that other people make. And no, we're not talking about another wikinovel...
Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher
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We Tell Stories, our alternate reality game and digital storytelling exercise finished 3 weeks ago - here Naomi Alderman explains the mysterious seventh story and the difference between writing books and writing games.
Last week, I went for a drink with some of the characters in a story
I'd just finished writing. Or at least, that's what it felt like. It's
a feature of writing Alternate Reality Games that the boundary between
players/readers and story-effecting characters becomes perilously thin.
As part of the We Tell Stories online storytelling project, I wrote
the Secret Seventh Story; one which you'd
only find if you went looking
for it. On the main site there was a white rabbit icon. Clicking on the rabbit led to a blog
called "Treacle and Ink", written by novelist and bookshop owner, Alice
Klein. Over eight weeks, Alice's story unfolded. She found a black
mirror in a junk room above her shop – looking into it gave her
wonderful ideas for that difficult second novel. But she began to spend
more and more time staring into the mirror, and the effects on her life
became increasingly troubling.
Meanwhile, within the six stories of We Tell Stories, clues were
appearing. "Alice, call 020 8133 8141" read a message that flashed up
during Charles Cummings' The 21 Steps. A pattern of dots in an image in
Toby Litt's story Slice led to information about a black mirror.
Clearly someone was trying to contact Alice Klein via these stories –
but who, and why?
The hunt was on. The blog's readers became more engaged in the
story than I could ever have hoped. They emailed Alice telling her
about the messages – she didn't believe them at first, so they had to
find ways to convince her. They went to St Pancras station to unravel a
coded message hidden there. They wrote online stories themselves to communicate with a character in the story.
In perhaps my favourite part of the story, the readers discovered
that another character, Jacques, had crucial information they needed.
But Jacques had recently broken up with his girlfriend. He said he was
just too desolate to talk to the readers – he'd only give them the
information they wanted if they came to a London pub and gave him
trinkets to win his girl back.
True to form, a band of readers turned up at the Jerusalem Tavern
one Thursday night in April. Claire Bateman from Six to Start had
briefed an actor, who waited in the pub while giggling, excited readers
presented him with their gifts. One had baked muffins, another had
painted a picture, another had bought a little ring from Argos, while
another had written poems for Jacques to recite to his girlfriend. Duly
impressed, "Jacques" gave them the information they'd come for, while I
lurked round the corner, trying to be inconspicuous while overhearing
the odd snatch of conversation.
It's this level of engagement and immediacy which makes this kind
of story so much fun to write. Working on a novel is a marathon:
perhaps several years of effort, and no one to cheer your progress
week-by-week, let alone day-by-day. By contrast, much of an Alternate
Reality Game has to be written quickly, to respond to the readers'
actions. Very frequently, on this kind of project, I'll be writing
something in the morning that goes live online in the afternoon and is
then busily discussed by readers on their forums in the evening. That
kind of instant response is intoxicating – and the most-engaged readers
end up influencing the story so much that they can come to feel like
characters themselves.
Is this the future of storytelling? It's too early to tell – we're
only just beginning to explore the storytelling potential of the
internet and computers. But instant communication makes reader
involvement a real possibility – and in a much more subtle way than the
horrific "vote on what should happen next" TV experiments of a decade
or so ago. Many writers might feel that reader involvement could only
sully their stories. But as for me, I'm excited by all the
opportunities the new technology brings.
Naomi Alderman is the author of the prize-winning Disobedience and was lead writer on pioneering alternate reality game Perplex City. She is currently working on her second novel. If you want to read the players perspective and watch how they solved the clues, the unfiction forum provides comprehensive coverage.
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Terms of Use. If you consider any content on this site to be inappropriate, please report it to Penguin Books by emailing
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