My Interpretation of Digital Storytelling

One thing I have learned from my previous post and my essay (posted below) is that I clearly enjoying making random statements as introductions. It works...but maybe I'll try to vary that a bit next time. I fell like my essay and first post are pretty on par with each other. The ideas/concept of what this class is about is basically the same from what I expected before having any sort of in-class time.

"Writing allows a person to make their thoughts or words permanent."

 -Yours Truly

I think my quote sort of embodies what storytelling is. We share our lives so that we can be remembered. The only difference from how we do it now and how it was before is that I am on a laptop rather than at a desk with ink and a quill. This class is about finding ways to make those stories accessible through various digital means.

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Writing in the 21^st Century

Writing has changed so much. Okay, maybe not necessarily the writing, in general…but the depiction of stories has changed. Writing allows a person to make their thoughts or words permanent. When it comes to life-changing quotes or life-saving formulas, permanence is a good thing. With the internet, however, it seems like people are probably wishing that some things didn’t stay quite so long. I can attest to having sent a text message or Facebook comment that I wish had not delivered. A comment I can delete, but with a Smartphone’s ability to screenshot everything, it hardly makes a difference, and a text once delivered can be detrimental. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to appreciate that forever lasting comment.

For instance, Facebook’s timeline allows you to go back pretty far. That’s a person’s life. I cringe when I go back to middle school me and see something along the lines of, “LOL great 2 tlk 2 u,” but that’s who I was. That’s me. Thankfully, I have since realized that bad grammar is not cute, but I’m not ashamed of who I was. My story isn’t as exciting or a best seller as say Anne Frank’s, but social media is a way for me to remain. Finding out a person’s whole life story is only a Google search away. That seems semi-frightening, but it is also refreshing in an odd way. Plus, I get to see the progress I’ve made since middle school days. Even if that progress is just being able to spell out “you,” I enjoy seeing it.

The generation gap makes a thing like reading and writing so interesting. I was sitting in Barnes & Noble once, and I was on my phone. An older gentleman passed by me and scoffed. I looked up from my phone and he gave me a nasty look, commenting “Youth these days. All these books and here you sit on your phone.” He walked away and I just stared at him. Honest to God, I was reading. I have the Sherlock Holmes collection on iBooks, so I was occupying my time while I waited for a friend. I was so angry! I actually spend a good portion of my day reading. I was rather insulted and if you look far back enough on my Twitter, you can find my ranting tweets on the incidence.

I am an English major. It is safe to say that I enjoy reading and writing. That doesn’t mean that every time you see me on my phone, I’m reading a classic. There is still a good chance I’m on instagram or playing whatever game happens to be a fad at the time. However, I use my phone for other purposes as well. I love fanfiction. I realize that there are a lot of published authors that detest it, but I think it is very flattering. To have inspired a person so much that you got their creative juices dripping out a plot and new characters is so incredibly amazing. And I have read some fantastic stories! In fact, there is one that I am currently following that has more words than Lord of the Rings. I drop everything the second I realize the story updated. No, it’s not Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean it’s not credible. Fanfition is fun and it keeps me from spending all my time watching TV, so I shall defend it always. I actually dabbled in fanfiction writing, but I never quite grasped the original character enough for me to be 100% proud of what I had written. I still occasionally get pings from people favoriting my story or leaving a comment that makes my day, but I don’t write it anymore. I have an original story in mind now and hopefully I can get started on that soon.

I hope that with this class I find time to write more. I want to be a high school English teacher and I want to inspire my students in some way. I hope that after taking my class they decide to write angry poetry or steamy fanfiction or an interesting short story. However, in order to do that, I should probably get to writing first. Like I said before, I have an interesting story idea. It may go not go anywhere, but I really need to get it out of my head! I hope that through writing assignments, I find the inspiration to get started on my story.