It was a cold December night. A young boy by the name of Michael Kenton is sitting in his room playing with his toy trains. Michael is eight years old with jet black hair and emerald eyes. His room is lit by a fire in the fireplace. Michael’s Uncle opened the door and told him “I’m locking the playroom for the night, is there anything you want out of it?” Michael shook his head and his Uncle closed the door. Michael had never been allowed in the playroom at night, he would hear weird noises when he went to use the bathroom, odd creaks and moans that just didn’t make sense in an empty room. Michael put away his trains and laid down for bed. The next morning Michael woke up with his uncle standing at the foot of his bed. He was a very tall man coming in at 6’2 with a large bald spot in the middle of his black and grey hair and green eyes the color of grass. He didn’t look very happy before he said “Michael, did you go into the playroom last night?” Michael looked at him confused, “No, I put my toys away and went to sleep Uncle.” Michael’s Uncle’s face went from angry to flushed in less than a second. “Uncle are you okay? You look funny.” He took a few minutes to respond but he looked up and said “Yes Michael…Just fine. Come on now, you’re going to be late for school.” Michael jumped up and started getting dressed he was excited about his first day at a new school. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he knew better than to ask questions when it came to that room it was always off limits. Michael put on his uniform a red polo shirt with the school crest on it and khaki pants all freshly ironed by his uncle. Michael was only in third grade, but he had already been moved into the advanced classes at his last school. He grabbed his backpack and walked out the door anxious to get his day started. As he walked down the hallway he stopped at the playroom and looked through the open door. It looked like they had been robbed or at the very least vandalized, the toys were all over the floor and the bean bag chair Michael sat on when he read was in the opposite corner upside down. The entire doorframe was covered in scratch marks that weren’t there the night before. Michael felt a chill rush down his spine, and he hurried downstairs to the car. It was storming outside in Denver, Colorado and was pretty cold. The rain was pounding down so hard Michael’s uncle had to make a few stops on the way because he couldn’t see very well but they made it to Michael’s school, Saint Mary’s Academy. Once at the right stop Michael was quickly ushered inside by a woman in a raincoat. Michael walked to his classroom, room 532 with Sister Love and looked around. Michael’s family wasn’t very religious, but Saint Mary’s offered the best education around and that was important to his family. Michael sat down at his desk and began his regular day of adding and subtracting. It was almost noon and Sister Love said, “Alright boys and girls, let’s sit down for story time.” Everybody cheered and sat down in the circle. Michael didn’t have any friends in this class, so he wasn’t sure where to sit so he looked around. He decided on a spot by the edge of the circle next to three boys. Sister Love sat in her rocking chair and said “Today, instead of me telling a story, each of you are going to tell a story.”
The class looked at each other and smiled. “Also, we have a new student joining us today, Let’s start with him! Everybody say hi to Michael!” “Took you long enough” Michael whispered. Michael didn’t really know what to tell everybody, not very much had happened but then he remembered…The playroom! Michael walked up in front of the class and looked around nervously. He smiled and began to tell his story about the noises and rules of his playroom. As he finished, Sister Love was looking at him horrified, as were the rest of the children. Michael realized he had scared them and maybe said too much so he thought quickly and said, “I’m joking, I just wasn’t sure what to say, I saw that in a movie.” he waited for the tension to break. Then the children slowly broke into giggles and Michael returned to his spot feeling accomplished. As the rest of the day went by nothing else interesting happened. Michael walked out of the school when the bell rang and waited on his Uncle to pick him up. Once he was in the back seat with his seatbelt on his uncle turned around and said “ I put new locks on the playroom and I don’t want you in there at all for a while.” Michael nodded his head and turned his attention to the window as they headed home. It was still pouring rain as they pulled into the driveway, so Michael’s uncle put his jacket over him for cover as they ran inside. Michael spent the day in his room watching the rain and reading a book. He had decided that he needed to see inside the playroom at night. He had read about taping locks so they couldn’t shut all the way and could be opened. So, he snuck downstairs and found the scotch tape in the kitchen drawer, he creeped back upstairs, carefully adjusted the tape on the locks and went to his room. He pretended to be asleep when his uncle said goodnight and before his uncle even closed his door, Michael’s feet hit the floor walking across his room. He slowly opened his door and creeped into the hallway. Every creak seemed as loud as a hammer hitting a nail. He walked up to the playroom door and opened it slowly. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, a white figure that looked like a person but not as well. The figure smiled at him. “We’ve been waiting on you Michael.” the voice sent chills down his spine. It was cold, it froze the air in front of him. The figure waved his finger and somehow pulled Michael forward, He waved it again and slammed the door shut. “We knew your curiosity would get the best of you.” Michael looked up into this thing’s eyes, they were nothing more than black holes, and realized, he wasn’t scared he was angry. “Who is we?” The figure smiled again. “We are the spirits that haunt this house… we’ve been waiting for someone that we could possess.” as he finished speaking two more figures appeared, they were just as eerie. The three enclosed him and Michael realized suddenly…he couldn’t move. His arms and legs wouldn’t listen and as the ghosts began to chant he heard a noise. A very loud slamming noise and Michael realized it was someone banging on the other side of the door. Then he heard his uncle’s voice from behind it shouting in another language. When his uncle stopped shouting the ghosts followed suit and stopped chanting. One of the ghosts said “He devotes his life to keeping us locked in here but speaks our language” then the original ghost responded in the same dialect. The third said “Are you sure? He could be equipped for war.” “…Aye, I’ve made sure he can’t harm us” and he waved his finger to open the door. Michael’s uncle entered wearing his robe and wielding a book and rod. He looked the boy in the eyes “I love you Michael, I’m sorry this happened I should have prepared you” and Michael was flung from the room. As he flew out the door slammed shut behind him. Michael hit the wall and fell unconscious until the morning when he was awoken by EMT’s. “Son? Son are you with us?” Michael took a while to respond but when he did, he realized where he was “Where’s my uncle? Is he okay?” The EMT looked at him confused and concerned. “Son you’re the only soul here” Michael looked across the hall at the playroom which had been blocked off by crime scene tape, the door was shut. “What’s in there?” The EMT followed his gaze “I’m not sure you’d have to ask the officers son” The EMT wrapped a blanket around him and carried him down to the ambulance away from the room and maybe his uncle. Michael watched the house until it faded out of sight feeling helpless. He never saw his Uncle again and with that being the last of his family he was put with other people to continue his raising. He often thought about that night and that house wondering what happened to his uncle and where he was. Michael is twenty seven now and can barely remember the incident, but he can sometimes still see that figure that took his uncle from him and he can always hear the language of the dead in his dreams…

Reflection.......

I have learned numerous things during my semester of digital story telling. One of the first things that I have learned is that I like reading stories more than I like writing them. I always thought that writing stories would be fun, but it turns out I am not as creative as I would like to be. I have also learned that there are way more genres of digital storytelling than I assumed there was. I really like to read horror blogs and I have found that there are a lot of them online just waiting to be found. I never realized before how many blogs were out there although I never really looked before. I loved reading about the Slenderman and small town noir. I found it exciting going through the adventure cave and trying to figure out what was going to come next.

The visual stories that I found were exciting and interesting because there were no words to guide you but still got the point across.  I found that I like writing reviews of stories and that it comes easy to me unlike just sitting down and creating a story out of nothing. That part of my class was hard for me but luckily I only had to do that once. Looking back at where I started on the first day of class I have a newfound respect for writers and their process because it is not as easy as I thought. You cant just sit down and write a book with no knowledge of the process so I think going forward I will enjoy reading stories more because I now know what goes into it and how hard it really is. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of my classmates blogs and got to know those personas fairly well. Most of my classmates seem to be very talented and I think they will continue creating because they are good at it.

So my newest assignment is to show my creative process when coming up with an idea for a digital story. My problem in writing classes has always been my imagination because I never really developed a very good one. I usually need a starting point or a topic in order to write a story. It is hard for me to come up with the basis for a story without being led there by someone else. I am going to try to write a story about a family and the problems and triumphs that they encounter. I can only write based on my own experiences because I usually need something to draw from. It is hard for me to come up with ideas for things that I have never been through. It has always amazed me how authors can write a whole book about things that never happened to them, to be able to come up with people and places that are all imaginary. That has always impressed me because I dont know how it is done. I am going to write a story that shows how a family can be brought to their knees but still at the end of the day love each other and have each others backs. They could be going on an adventure, or just living daily life, I think there are a lot of places I could go with that idea. I could also write about on of their lives individually and what that person encounters on their everyday life. He could be almost grown and I could talk about his decsions that he has to make to start the rest of his life. I could also pick one of the younger kids and write about how she feels about losing her brother to college soon and how that will affect her life. we could delve into the parents thought and feelings about how the family will be affected by one of them leaving home to go to college. It is hard to think about one of your kids leaving the house for good because your job of teaching them about life is pretty much over and now you have to see if they can fly on their own. I imagine it would be difficult to realize that you have to let your kids go out on their own and you no longer have a say about their everyday life. I think that would be a very interesting story to tell. I could also write about them all going on a vacation together before the oldest goes off to college and the adventure that would entail. Where would they go and what would they encounter.

If I were to create a podcast, I think I would take a page out of the podcast “Unresolved” book and talk about weird or mysterious true things. I would try to make it more interesting by adding music or sound effects. I liked the podcast, but I just found my mind wandering because it was just his monotone voice going on and on. It could have been condensed or spiced up by adding some sound effects to make it more intriguing.

I think my podcast would be closer to the radio drama, with multiple speakers/characters. I would like to tell about interesting or weird unsolved cases or even solved ones that were intriguing. Maybe even reenacting them to a point that it tells the gist of the story and then me going into more detail afterwards. I would want it to be more than you just sitting there listening to it, I would want you to be entertained and involved in it. I have never created a podcast before so these ideas may be out of reach or just too much to get into a podcast but its what I would like. 

Video Diaries (Marble Hornets)

I think one of the elements that was used in the video diaries I watched was cinematography and editing. I am picking two because I think they go hand in hand in this series. The series I chose was Marble Hornets, it had nothing to do with what it started out to be. I think it was about Slenderman which is why I watched like 15 of the 2-3 minute videos. I think the way that it was edited was one of the major reasons that I kept watching for a good hour and a half. Each clip made you think that in the next clip you would figure it all out which of course you didn’t. The way that it was filmed, or the cinematography was kind of chilling and gave me goosebumps a couple of times. When filming a horror clip or movie and you choose to try to make it look real it is a tough choice, but I think it pays on in this film. I think if I made a movie I would also focus on editing because I think that is the backbone of your movie. If it is not edited correctly it can ruin the entire film.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHzIO0agtCQEsTxUcahZgjQ

What makes a good digital story? I think there are a few elements that go into making a good story. It is kind of like making the perfect stew because it is the mix of ingredients that make it good. I think one of the most important parts is the conflict. I have written a couple of blogs about why I think conflict is important. Conflict is what is happening between the person in the story and the outside forces against them.  For me one reason conflict is important is it makes the story more interesting and gets the reader more invested in the story. In Slenderman you feel the conflict between the girl in the story and the Slenderman. You can feel the tension and fear in the story, and it keeps you reading to find out what happens. Here she is face to face with the Slenderman, “The girl was trapped between the instinct to flee and the gut feeling to not turn her back on the door” You can feel her fear in this sentence, and it helps you be able to put yourself in her shoes. In the cave adventure interactive story, you have conflict between you, the adventurer, and the cave itself but also with the gnomes and pirates who are out to get you. When you have a good conflict, you feel like you are a part of the story and that is why you continue reading.  I think conflict and plot go hand in hand and that is why my next point is the plot of a story. The plot is very important in making a good digital story. The plot is what the story is about, what is going on in the story, what is the point of it, where is the story going? In Slenderman we are running from a freakishly scary man, in cave adventure we are exploring caves and getting robbed by pirates, in [Text] A Summer Story we are talking to a ghost through text messages, and in all we are fully immersed in the story because the plot grabs your attention and demands that you finish reading. Some plots are interactive and that can be exciting.  I hadn't experienced many interactive digital stories until recently, but I think they are fun and entertaining. It's always stimulating to feel like you are a part of the story.  When you feel invested in the story you are more likely to finish it and maybe reread it later. When a story doesn’t have a good plot line or a conflict that grabs your attention you are less likely to be entertained or even continue reading.

https://www.creepypasta.com/slenderman/ 

http://www.amctv.com/shows/halt-and-catch-fire/colossal-cave-adventure/landing 

http://sakevisual.com/summerstory.html