The Report

"We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us." Andrew Ryan BioShock

    I was required to complete my own narrative to describe the issue I researched previously in Project 2. The aforementioned was violent games and their effects on the behavior of youth. Therefore, I had to find a way to incorporate this element into my narrative. I decided that the best way to incorporate the decision and risk making in video games in a written format would be a Choose Your Own Adventure story. Video games are essentially Choose Your Own Adventure stories in a digital format; therefore, it would simulate the violent /pacifistic routes one could face. The narrative I chose to write was a simple medieval fantasy story containing elements of magic, swordsmanship, and adventure. Initially I wanted to create a story with two different routes, Iron and Ink. Unfortunately, the narrative proved too long for such a short assignment. Therefore, the title of the narrative was changed to “Trial of Iron”, encompassing the original Iron route.  

    Besides the narrative itself, I was required to create a new website to display the narrative on. In retrospect, this was the most fortuitous parameter for my narrative. I was able to create a platform to hyperlink the choices in my story. In a paperback form, the author scrambles paragraphs and tells the reader to select the choice they would like to make, and then flip to the corresponding page number. My paragraphs were scrambled and hyperlinked one by one in order for the story to flow, so the reader did not have to manually search for the next paragraph. I decided to use a simple movie advertising template as my base template for the website. I changed the color pallet to fit my black, white, and blue graphics. An author’s page was also created, using the simple design from my original about page. I decided to use a mangaka as my persona and used hexadecimal coding to find the dominant color in the image. I was then able to copy the hexadecimal code and complement the image with the page background.  

   For the website, I had to design images that represented my narrative. Due to the ambiguous, self-creative nature of my narrative, I had to be creative. My priority was to ensure that only shadow figures and general locations would be displayed. I did not want to represent my characters how I envisioned them, because it would take away from the “choose your own” aspect. My intended audience was those who enjoy fantasy narratives and video games. Roleplaying game players would find the hero’s journey story familiar and fun. While those who enjoy fantasy, narratives would be keen on making their own choices. I ensured that I added historical facts, linguistic nuances, and used the hero’s journey model to create a successful and familiar story. As I briefly mentioned, elements of the fantasy genre used were the hero’s journey model, magic, swordsmen and knights, and a kingdom.  

   The promotional images I created were made in Canva. I created a simple book poster and a social media square. The book poster included four images of scenarios one could encounter in the story. The social media square asked readers if they would control the fate of the world, and what choices they would make. It featured a simple image of a silhouette. The concept was originally a cloaked figure looking out at a mountain range. However, the design settled upon was a title, tagline, and a snowy mountain range. The reader can attempt to climb snowy mountains to reach the true ending, therefore, it is a subtle hint for the direction one should take. I decided to create my graphics in one day because I had a lot of free time on my hands. I figured if I could complete many different promotional images at the same time, they would be uniform and consistent. I would also be able to delegate which ones to post on days where I was short on time. The social media was whenever I could post. I tried to do the bulk of my posts around 12-3PM EST, as this is the American “lunchtime”. Many people check their phones during their lunchbreak and therefore, would be more inclined to interact. When writing the story, I wrote whenever I had the time to. I completed an initial route map in order to decide how I wanted the story to go. However, the bulk of the story came from ideas I had first thing in the morning.  

    The most challenging thing about this project versus project two was the style. I am a very intellectual person; therefore, research papers are easy and honestly preferable as opposed to creative writing. Though I love to draw and create, when writing, factual reports are easier to compose. Advice I would have given to myself before, is to begin promoting the narrative earlier than assigned. Usually I read ahead to decide what I can do early, and I failed to this time. I felt overwhelmed using the social media. I decided to use Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook because I am most familiar with the admin side and business side of the platforms. My plan to draw attention to my narrative was the use of quotes and questions. The quotes would draw the reader’s attention, wanting to know more about the story. I believed the questions would spark the reader’s interest by causing them to think, interrupting mindless scrolling. The hashtags I utilized were “trialofiron”, “shortstory”, “medieval”, “cyoa”, and “短篇故事” (meaning “short story” in Chinese).  

    I believe the platform that did the best was Instagram. I was able to receive many followers from friends, to family, to accounts who just love books. I got many likes on my photographs, and it was very satisfying. On Twitter, I followed about 90 people in attempt to get them to follow me back. On Instagram I followed about 50 people. On Facebook, I shared the page with my Anime fan page, my personal page, and asked for my friends to share it as well. For Twitter, my total post count was just above 100 posts, while Facebook and Instagram were just above 50 posts each. The fear of posting more, is spamming or being seen as a robo-account for an influx of posts in a short amount of time. The accounts had to be balanced and reasonable to be successful. My audience on Facebook was not very responsive, so I began to share the page more frequently to get a larger audience base. Furthermore, I added interactive polls to the Facebook and Twitter posts. It is much easier to click a radio button, than to comment. Another technique I used was a broader range of hashtags per post and tagging friends or other brands.  

    For project two, I researched popular controversial issues and selected something I was passionate about. My issue on video games was relatively new to the scientific community, so research papers were devastatingly limited. I worked with what I had to make a successful paper. However, in project three, I had more control over what I was writing about and what I could use. I handmade a story map in my notebook for the different routes and options. It was a nice flow chart style choice and effect map. I had to create a narration choice by choice, rather than looking at a research question and deciding how an entire essay should be organized. A consideration I had to make for project three that I did not in project two was ensuring that my narrative was not a plagiarized form of someone else’s. The challenge of following a hero’s journey model is ensuring that yours is unique and not a replication, intentional or unintentional, of another author. Often, I had to refocus and rewrite a section because the plot aligned too closely with a game I had played or book I had read. In project two, I had to ensure the synthesis of information was my own, which was not something foreign to me, as the AP program taught me how to properly synthesize research.  

    The most challenging aspect of composition for me was the fact that project three was a creative narrative. Those who know me can attest to the phrase “I am not creative”. I would much rather write a lecture on the history and theology of the Catholic Church, than write a story about little Suzy and her new shoes. However, drawing a road map and deciding how I wanted project three to end made it easier to get my creative juices flowing. I would have told myself to consolidate a story I wanted, not one I settled on. Initially I decided to write a story from a few creative essay prompts. However, when I started writing, I could not create something my heart was in. I scrapped it and found my story. Had I started with my passion, I would not have needed to scrap anything. 

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(Word Count 1500)