Zoe Margolis started a blog over 4 years ago: girl with a one track mind. It is a hugely popular blog and was picked up by Ebury Press to be published as a book. My blog isn't to write about the success of this digital storytelling, my blog is to look at what makes her popular.
Topic: Girl with a one track mind is a kiss and tell tale of the sexual activities of Abby Lee. I have a wonderful book on my shelf called: Diary of a Seducer. It is a story about a man deliberatly arousing the passions of a young society girl written by Soren Kierkegaard (1813 to 1855). My point is the topic is not new to storytelling.
Length: Girl with a one track mind has diary entries which are quite short and easy to read. I have read lots of blogs and no matter how dedicated I am to the blog I have a limit to the length of story I can read onscreen. As long as digital stories are being read on computers and laptops authors will have to work with short concentration spans. Blogs are good for delivering short pieces of information, Twitters are better (for those who can write stories in 3 lines). The difficulty with a blog is there is no real way of bookmarking the story you are reading and digital readers who miss a few blogs when they take their summer holiday may not return to your story.
Style of Writing: Zoe Margolis writes in a humerous and interesting way. There are many styles of writing that work in new digital storytelling, read good books to refine your own style.
Plot: Girl with a one track mind has a simple plot following Abby Lee's life and the characters in her life. A simple plot works better with a blogging format for storytelling as digital readers are likely to miss blogs.
Character Development: The main character Abby Lee develops through the story as do the minor characters. The way these characters develop is key to the story as it allows the digital reader to empathise with the characters. Again, this is a standard storytelling technique - it is not knew to digital storytelling.
Oh, look. The things a new digital author needs to think about are pretty much the same as the things authors have been thinking about since stories began. If you want to write good digital fiction, read good fiction and learn from the masters of story telling.
One last thing: Jakob Nielsen's site: useit.com is aimed at internet professionals working with commercial sites, but is worth a wander through as he has very useful information about what people do on websites: what is the best font, how many clicks visitors will do, what is the best styles of writing, how many words digital readers read, etc.
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