Digital storytelling. Is it movies? Is it animation? Is it video game design? Is it publishing an e-book series on Amazon? Could we go so far as to ask if it's even a mom recording herself reading a book so that her toddler could hear her voice while she was away on a business trip?
In short, YES. I believe it take the form of all of these things and more. To me, digital storytelling is any act of sharing a verbal or nonverbal progression of ideas by means of a digital vessel. This can be as simple as a digitally recorded narration of a book, or as complex as a batch of photographs that, when pieced together as a series, illustrate the hard truth of the effects that pollution has had on the Earth. Stories are diverse creatures that can morph and interact in surprising ways, depending on the audience's willingness to allow them to do so.
Digital storytelling has been important to me since before I knew to call it digital storytelling. One of my favorite things about getting older has been going back and watching all of my favorite movies from my childhood and catching the crafty references that have been there all along and are very much a mean of telling stories. When you're a kid, you don't really appreciate the significance of watching a movie like the 1997 Hercules that actually draws directly from Greek mythology that has been around for thousands and thousands of years. You watch it because it's vibrant, has darn good music, a few really sweet sappy moments to make your heart do a little flutter, and good ole slapstick humor. There's something to be said for the incorporation of historical and mythological elements into a piece of fiction, and how that can make certain things finally stick in the minds of people who may not have been connecting with the information itself before. Storytelling in its entirety is vital to cultivating tradition, enriching relationships, creating meaningful art, and the digital aspect allows that which has likely been thought or said many times before to be represented in a tangible, more memorable form.
I hope this post meets you on a lovely day with lovely weather and lots of encounters with lovely people but if it didn't, let today be today and hope for a better tomorrow.
Thanks for reading this. The first time doing anything is always kind of terrifying and this is my first blog post in the history of ever, so I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments if you feel led to share those with me.
{Today's mind/heart/soul-healthy challenge: identify something that you may not have ever seen as beautiful and try to think of one reason that it is.}
*MAKE TODAY STORY-WORTHY.*