Course Description

In Writing for Multimedia, the literary traditions of the twentieth century meet the cybercultures of the twenty-first. This workshop course explores the writing tasks facing the multimedia professional, whether as a concept and story writer, a producer or as a hands-on creator of multimedia presentations and narratives.

We'll experiment with two kinds of creative writing in this class. First is the writing of the content of your project. Second, and just as important, is the writing that drives your project into motion: the pitch that wins the commission from a client, the storyboards that structure interactivity and break down the narrative for collaborators, and so on.

In this course you will practice both kinds of writing, culminating in a collaborative project presented to me as your client, and to your fellow writers as a potential audience.

Please don't worry if you have never created a multimedia project before. This is not a technical class where you need to master multiple complex softwares. However, scripting interactivity is a key component of multimedia writing (of both kinds), and thus we shall spend class time working on the skills and concepts you need to communicate interactively.

But, again, don't worry! The substance of the course is your writing, the imagination with which you use words to communicate, and the skill with which you structure those words into compelling narratives. For most of the assignments, you may choose your own medium for delivering those words to me, and to the rest of the class. You earn your grade through your writing.