Penguin Books and Six to Start launched We Tell Stories, a digital literature project using internet-native techniques, on Tuesday. “It is a new way of telling stories,” says Six to Start chief creative officer Adrian Hon.
The project uses Web 2.0 tools for new narrative methods intended to reach new readers. Its first story uses a Google Maps mashup, while a later instalment is planned to be written live.
The interactive story The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming tracks the protagonist’s route on a map. “We use current Google Maps data,” Hon explains. The application draws the character’s path through Britain and the wider world over the map data, allowing readers to follow the narrative through both text and the mashup. Five further episodes and an overarching story will use other web techniques. “One of the stories will include an element of live performance,” says Hon. Readers visiting the story website at the appropriate time will be able to follow the text’s creation word by word.
“Penguin has always been very interested in new ways of telling stories,” Hon says, referring to the previous year’s wikinovel project.
We Tell Stories uses newer browser capabilities more extensively. Penguin says the narratives would not have been possible in the same form twenty years or even two years earlier. “Web browsers are now developed enough to animate routes,” Hon says of the Google Maps mashup. Broadband connections also provide the speed needed for the image-heavy project. Five years earlier, he argues, a comparable project would have required Flash and cost more while running more slowly.
“If there is real interest, we want to create more stories like these,” Hon says. The project is not intended to compete with conventional books, but its approach may reach younger audiences who rarely read them. Six to Start has a working system that could also support projects in other languages, and a French publisher has already expressed interest.
We Tell Stories comprises six regular episodes and one overarching narrative, all based on classic works of English literature. The first episode is inspired by John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, while Penguin says the overarching story will concern a girl named Alice.
