Notes on How to Create an Interactive Story Website

Dreaming Methods explore ways in which stories can be told through websites. The key lessons to learn from the stories they have are:

1. The combination of images, sound, effects and words
Their clear objective is to tell stories not to create a game, but they have learned valuable lessons from games. The online reader of their story is hooked through simple visual effects delivered through the Flash interface. The method of moving through the story mimics the way a gamer moves through a game: draging the screen left/right and clicking on something to move in.

2. Reducing the number of words
The digital reader has a shorter attention span than the book reader. Dreaming Methods provide an image for the reader to explore after reading little more than a paragraph. When preparing a story for the internet the number of words are limited and should be carefully chosen.

3. Ensuring the hyperlinking is part of the story
The internet allows the user to interact with the story, Dreaming Methods have used hyperlinks to great effect by ensuring that everytime the reader clicks they are drawn a little further into the story and every hyperlink is an integral part of the story.

I recomment reading the stories on their site to learn about how to make a story interactive.

http://www.dreamingmethods.com/