Textual Practice with Twine
This textual practice explores digital textuality, specifically Twine. Twine is “an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. It allows users to create a visual novel or other video games through its story builder. The program uses a story builder interface and requires users to learn basic coding to create pathways.” (Miessler) Twine can be used through a web browser or through an app downloaded to your computer. (If you use the web browser version, storage only lasts for 7 days when unvisited.) A Twine story is created by adding texts, specifically with the help of HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. The program is celebrated in how it “ allows a single person to develop an interactive experience holistically, without relying on any external specialist’s knowledge. Twine is a tool for resisting the dominant interactive storytelling of our times and, as such, tends to be a tool for chronicling resistance and struggle.” (Moulthrop, Salter, 2021) Twine was created by Chris Klimas and has seen many betas and iterations over its 10 year existence. The program has been used to develop stories, poetry and even games that people will share among each other to play. The program website also shares a discord channel in which users can visit to discuss with other creators about their projects.
This technology shows how we can intertwine more interactive components in the reading process. There is also something to note in the encouragement of users to have a choice in the story that they want to follow, with the program allowing for different choices leading to different variations of the story. This technology celebrates the importance of storytelling and narratives. Encouraging people to create and share their own.
Twine uses hypertext to create a system of branching hypertext, which allows creators to add text, with different questions and answers to build a text. These options allow for different meanings to be created depending on the route that the user takes. In Tyrkko’s (2007) article, “Making Sense of Digital Textuality” they ask an important question of “how do we discuss a text – or meaningfully refer to one – if each reading has the power of transforming the potential narrative lines of a hypertext into a new literary object..?” In Twine allowing for users to take their own path, this question arises, but I think this questioning of interpretation and meaning is what is meaningful. The ability to choose, the fact that our ideas and meanings won’t always align is something to be celebrated.
For the in class presentation, I will discuss what Twine is and connect it to the readings. I will particularly focus on the aspect of the potential connection between gendering of textual production and the need to encourage the sharing of narratives, especially from BIPOC women and queer people, when they are often left out of the main narrative. This makes me think about digital counterpublics, which are spaces that people create out of a need for community and to be heard, when they’re ignored. Instead of creating a space for community, Twine creates an area to share the narratives and stories that we feel like we can’t express in our daily lives. For my Twine example, I used a children’s storybook Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel to get an idea of how to get a story to flow. For the class, I will mention that they can create a story on whatever they want, but if they need an idea to get practice, I’ll provide some possible prompts. For example, using a children’s book, a daily adventure, or a board game. There is also the potential for multimodality and remix in being able to remix existing stories or to add additional elements like sound by suggesting a playlist for the user to listen to as they read through your Twine story.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LJoLhZKLnbXUVhi1If1QQkb-cKi2xW6m5BVD-13uW9A/edit?usp=sharing
To make this textual practice more accessible, I suggested that students just use the web version as we practiced in class. This way they didn’t have to worry about downloading the app or exporting anything yet (which can easily be done through the website).
To create a story, I selected new and began typing my story. The Frog and Toad series is one of my childhood favorites. In using this story I considered how children consume text. What about textuality and materiality of children’s books makes them most appealing?
Each time that I created a selection, I made sure to test the story up until that point, to make sure that everything was flowing well.
I created a lot more choices than I thought I did, in the end, users ultimately got to decide if they would make more cookies or if they would make a cake. I though this was funny considering the original story was a story about showing willpower to say “no” to sweets.
Textual practice with Audacity
The textual practice with audacity was interesting! I rarely ever sit down and listen to my voice, so it was a bit of a weir experience. I had previously recorded one podcast episode with a friend a couple of years ago during the beginning of COVID-19, but it was recorded through Zoom and I didn’t have to handle any of the uploading process. For this practice I talked about how my research interest may connect with podcasts, and how I might use sites like Audacity in my work. During this process I found myself wanting to keep pausing, so that I could avoid having to go back and snip it out, but I tried my best to avoid doing that, so I could experience this practice. I think my desire to try to keep pausing it partially influenced by my work in the ODU Writing Center, People are able to make online appointments in which we send a video message with feedback, but the site we use doesn’t allow for editing.
As I was thinking about pausing and the difference between audacity and the site that we use in the writing center, decided to also try to record using that site. The website is called Kaltura and usually for our appointments we will use the screen capture option, so I did the same, even though I would only be hearing my voice, with no visual. There were a lot of long pauses, similar to how it was in audacity, but because I had already recorded once some things seemed smoother.
(I wasn’t able to post the twine story here due to the file, but I can share it if needed! Same for the audacity file.)
Aldousany, L. (2023). Game On: Writing with Twine in a Secondary English Language Arts Classroom. English journal, 112(3), 13-15.
Aljayyousi, M. I. (2017). Enter the Digital: Emergent Materiality and the Digitization of Literary Texts: The Novel as a Case Study. Digital studies, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/dscn.273
Anthropy, A. (2019). Make your own Twine games!
Comer, K. (2015). Illustrating Praxis: Comic Composition, Narrative Rhetoric, and Critical Multiliteracies. Composition studies, 43(1), 75-104.
Farley, A. M. (2013). Textualities in the Digital Age. Humanist studies & the digital age, 3(1), 7-10. https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/hsda.3.1.3076
Miessler, R.C. (2024). Twine. Digital Humanities Toolkit, WordPress. https://dh.sites.gettysburg.edu/toolkit/tools/twine/
Moulthrop, S., & Salter, A. (2021). Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12255695
Ryan, M.-L. (2002). Beyond Myth and Metaphor: Narrative in Digital Media. Poetics today, 23(4), 581-609. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-23-4-581
Shillingsburg, P. (2014). From Physical to Digital Textuality: Loss and Gain in Literary Projects. CEA critic, 76(2), 158-168. https://doi.org/10.1353/cea.2014.0019
Starks, K., Barker, D., Cole, A., Baalsrud Hauge, J., Ma, M., Göbel, S.,…Marsh, T. (2016). Using Twine as a Therapeutic Writing Tool for Creating Serious Games. 9894, 89-103. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45841-0_8
Tran, K. M. (2016). “Her story was complex”: A Twine workshop for ten- to twelve-year-old girls. E-learning and digital media, 13(5-6), 212-226. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753016689635
Tyrkkö, J. (2007). Making sense of digital textuality. European Journal of English Studies, 11(2), 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825570701452722