Collective Story Creation — Experiments in defining a new national narrative
by Marco Sparmberg
A little more than three years ago the Singapore Transmedia Meetup group came into being with support by our friends at the local production house AV8 Media. The initial intention of this group was a rather personal one. Having just arrived in Singapore I felt the need not only to connect with local content creators, but also to understand their story heritage and culture.
Coming from the feature film and TV side, I knew industry professionals don’t always maintain vibrant exchange channels for ideas and experiences. Hence, the group should also serve as forum for creators to connect with each other.
It was January 2014 and Singapore was barely eleven months away from SG50, the nation’s landmark anniversary celebration year. I became intrigued by the notion of national narrative and how it will see a fundamental redefinition over the years to come.
Like many things in Asia, progress hits fast and transformation accelerates as you move along. Six months into our meetup group we joined the global StoryCode network and launched the Singapore chapter.
What is StoryCode Singapore?
StoryCode is a global open-source community for emerging and established cross-platform and immersive storytellers. By developing, incubating and exhibiting innovative, immersive story forms, StoryCode serves creators, technologists and distributors of cross-platform narrative content. We invite enthusiasts and professionals alike “to storycode” — simply meaning, to tell a story in a new way, using the bounty of new tools at our disposal.
As the first StoryCode chapter in Asia, Singapore continues to advocate and educate about transmedia and cross-platform content production set in the media business context of South-East Asia. Apart from networking and panel discussion events, the chapter maintains a strong spotlight on ‘story-hacking’ workshops. Many of which experiment with and explore new ways of expressing narrative experiences. As a collective project, we attempt to find an answer to “What makes up a Singapore story?”
The storyteller ecosystem
Over the years we have been purposely mixing unique situations and tools that may not hold an apparent link to storytelling. On this journey connecting with different local artistes and other creators communities has been essential.
Singapore holds such a rich micro-community culture full of passionate content creators from all walks of life.
In this respect, one meetup still sticks to my mind. When our co-organizer Don Bosco launched his community initiative 100 Writers, he invited a couple of attendees from the audience to share about their projects. It turned out, each introduced another meetup group they were active in and how they get others excited to participate in story creation. It was testament to a rich and vibrant creators’ ecosystem.
Building layers to cut across
During StoryCode SG workshops we attempt to open up storytelling techniques to people who would usually not be exposed to media and narrative production of any kind. Based on the traditional, simple story arch structure (hero’s journey) we start adding more layers to enrich the narrative structure and enable elements to cut across different media and platforms.
The objective is to make story creation more accessible by means of media or tools that could be commonly used or understood. Ordinary, day-to-day utensils that can function as stepping stone into a story universe.
By adding multiple layers across different art disciplines the workshop’s environment offers a platform for rapid prototyping. With a strict time limitation the focus is rather put on spontaneous creativity than fine tuning within a single discipline. This allows for a certain “raw access” to creative self-expression and reduces the emergence of self-censorship.
Finding the character of a medium
In order to facilitate multiple disciples workshops are split into separate stations. Each participant must go through a minimum of two to three different media types. Here, creators may want to chose to start with a station/medium that they are most familiar with. But we have come to learn that Singaporeans are quite adventurous. Many would opt for the unknown and deliberately finish with the most familiar.
While exploring the individual stations, participants have to identify the nature of each medium and how it can translate into a story layer. One of the most preferred interpretations would be 3D objects representing characters while drawings set the environment these characters interact with. Text would then connect all dots and add depth to the layering process.
This approach offers story creators to explore their own ideas in a rather tangible journey as they literally touch and shape their own narrative.
During early workshops where focus was put on written ad-hoc story creation, those that were more familiar with writing would come up with short narratives, on-point in language but in need for a specific initiation scenario to start off from. Others, not so familiar with storytelling, would usually be left stranded or fall back on existing works they had read prior.
Comics & cardboards
One of our first attempts to this workshop model was the combination of comics and cardboards. A short six tiles comic strip based on the predetermined storyworld of Singapore’s latest superhero, Captain Cardboard, would then be augmented with a series of prepared and self-created cardboard characters. Final works were published by their creators on social media right away.
From text to 3D
During a collaboration with local artists Lennard Ong and Lara Dudley, a more complex workshop setup was introduced including a four station workflow.
Each station holds its very own type of creation method. Guided by an individual station facilitator, participants are able to give their ideas physical shapes within minutes. All works created are documented on specially designed worksheets as well as presented and discussed during a group sharing at the end of the session. Many of these stories find their way onto social media or are often shared with friends instantly.
Example: published short story on Instagram
First research findings
With the documentation of all stories created over the first two and a half years we were able to start analyzing emerging patterns. Given that we often keep the initial story setting as open as possible, it has been challenging to define specific parameters for this analysis. Which is why a first reference point can be seen in repeating topic patterns to gain a better indication to what subsequent data sets would be relevant.
Three connecting main elements or traits were identified across all stories collected (order based on frequency):
- Environment needs protection.
- Cultural identity search, loneliness and how it translates in building future.
- Money and its evil results — often in combination with losing friendship or fighting for communities.
The topic cloud displays the variety of stories, although most overlapped and were similar in nature or even in their set of moral values.
Naturally, these are by no means conclusive results. The volume of stories is still comparatively small and one could argue that most participants walk into these story creation sessions with a bit of an agenda. However, it provides a first glimpse at where we could be headed.
Connecting the dots
In fact, StoryCode SG workshops see a high diversity in participants and stories created. Although not fully representative, it can still function as dipstick survey to start collecting an initial set of learnings that may help understand the evolution process of a new national narrative. When we put the first findings into context of ongoing initiatives across Singapore, some early conclusions could be drawn.
Let us identify first why Singapore’s national narrative is due for reinterpretation. After its 50th anniversary in 2015, the nation’s classic hero story came to an end. The pioneer that defies all obstacles and builds a society from the ground up, embodying multiculturalism, security and wealth through hard work had lost its appeal as the nation started to look into the future.
The question of maturing arises and subsequently what will this new, more sophisticated narrative look like? It already became evident that the answer won’t be as simple as the previous Pioneer story. The nation’s new challenges are as diverse as it’s new narratives.
Recently, Jeff Gomez started to publish findings from his research on the new (global) narrative model that he calls the Collective Journey. Elements of this model can already be witnessed in Singapore. Yet a very local interpretation is about to emerge. It might even be powerful enough to kickstart a transformation process across the region.
When we put the topic finding from our workshops into perspective it is likely that more stories will start revolving around technology and how humans interact with it. Either by means of creation (maker culture) or usage (effects of consumption and life integration).
It may come as a surprise at first, but ‘environment’ stories were primarily related to technology. How it can enable sustainability and empower eco-awareness while serving the community. A synergy that possibly has its roots within the Smart Nation initiatives as well as the countless hackathon events or educational projects like FIRST Lego League. Especially Smart Nation received a significant “storytelling-injection” when the initiative’s main organizer, IDA, merged with its media counterpart MDA in late 2016.
Collective Journey is a most appropriate term for the exciting developments that lie ahead. Storytelling is no longer the prerogative of professional media producers. It returned to its original, democratized concept, yet became far more complex and diverse in nature. Every one of us will take a part in shaping future storytelling techniques.
Personally, I see the future role of the professional storyteller rather as facilitator and curator. Someone that empowers others in participation and innovation. A change agent.
Read the full research and workshop summary deck with a number of story examples:
[First presented at the Asian Festival for Children’s Content in May 2016.]
About the author: Marco is a transmedia producer and immersive storytelling pioneer. By day, he heads up social media and digital audience development at Singapore’s National Broadcaster, Mediacorp. By night, he runs story-hacking workshops as Singapore chapter co-organizer of StoryCode. https://www.linkedin.com/in/msparmberg/
