Digital Narrative

"Distributed narratives are stories that aren't self-contained. They're stories that can't be experienced in a single session or in a single space. They're stories that cross over into our daily lives, becoming as ubiquitous as the network that fosters them."

That quote defines what Jilll Walker's piece "Distributed Narrative: Telling Stories Across Networks" was about. Although her piece was just an intro to further research, the document said a lot about narratives and the different ways of telling stories online.

For this assignment, I chose to review "The Toll Bridge" by Nathan Oser on themoonlitroad.com. The author does a good job of drawing you in by using clear language and even phrases such as "Are you listening?" to keep you honest.

For a change of pace, a lot of this story was dialogue. For example:  

“Where are we?” Tommy glanced left and right along the road and squinted to read the street sign through clinging layers of fog. “Graves–way–Lane?”

“Yeah, Old Man Hickley’s.” Ricky flicked him in the chest and capered across the street. “Come on.” 

“Didn’t know this place was here,” said Tommy, wading through the fog. 

“Sure you did. Remember swimming lessons? The old pool used to be just down that way.”

Although the story was only told through text, the author did a good job of capturing moments by using descriptive language such as "laughed" and "easy as cake."

Overall, I thought the piece was strong, but not as strong as some of the multimedia pieces I've followed. Having huge blocks of text in a blog-like format isn't always attractive, and having photos and videos to navigate through at all times is always a plus. This story didn't have much of a multimedia element.