Surprising Narrative "Device"

Introducing students to narrative devices is an important lesson in digital storytelling. In an ironic turn, I have also found that "device" goes beyond the linguistic to include the electronic. Your own Twitter posts, for example, might become a type of narrative, especially when you are on a trip and incidentally (or purposefully) using your Twitter account to narrate your journey.

I have decided to call these narratives "twitarratives" since they are unique. Twitarratives don't always make sense as a stream of consciousness without some Twitter experience. To make sense to the story reader, they sometimes require some contextual knowledge shared by writer and the reader; and, in some cases, require even some connectivity context to be understood/read as a narrative. I see a number of digital storytellers trying out these twitarratives, trying to gain access to a storyline that generates interest. Share your own twitarrative with me at http://twitter.com/merrymaven. It will be interesting to see if this device is working for your digital storytelling.