Story-Telling of the Future

Originally, story-telling would occur by word-of-mouth. Then, with the invention of the printing press, paper-based books were soon to be developed and the novel was born. More recently, with advances in technology, audio books became popular. Today, with the popularity of digital information, people can now read digitalised eBooks on an electronic device.

You may agree that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to predict how story-telling will proceed into the future. However, could it be that the reading experience may become more interactive, with the reader becoming a participant in the story?

If this is the case, this picture may give you an appetite of what we might expect in the very near future. The children in this photograph have been inspired and taught by Hauptmann Weydert. They are following a projection of a story, by author Maxwell Grantly, upon a screen at the back of the studio as the plot is being read by the youth leader. At the same time, the children are exploring a digital reconstruction of the story’s setting on their own individual computer within Hauptmann Weydert’s IT studio. They have even been able to interact with different characters from the story at the same time, talking to them and playing a range of basic games.

Who knows how the reading experience may develop in the more distant future!

(Picture Credit: Hauptmann Weydert)

Transmedia Story-Telling

Today at 14:00 Luxembourg time (13:00 Greenwich Mean Time) a group of children from the Luxembourg Eich day care centre had an opportunity to listen to a retelling of Maxwell Grantly’s “Fire Starter!” story. At the same time, they were also able to wander around a digital reconstruction of the setting of the story to meet some of the characters from the book. You can see, in the image attached to this post, that they even had the chance to met the baby dragon that had just escaped from one of the chimneys in Pfaffenthal.

The crowd were able to wander around the digitally created streets of old Luxembourg, to the baby dragon’s favourite place: the smoke house. There was even a chance at the end of the story-telling session for a quick game of ‘chase’ around the streets of 1867 Pfaffenthal.

If you would also like to explore the streets that feature in the stories of Maxwell Grantly, firstly you will need a programme that will run on your PC or iMac. To do this, you’ll need to download some free 3D browsing software: the Second Life Viewer. You can download this viewer by clicking on the orange button at this link:

https://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

(Hint: this viewer runs best on a modern computer. If your computer is slow or very old, your experience may be sluggish.)

Next, after you have downloaded this viewer, just launch the software and then click on the link below, called a slurl. This slurl will transport you directly into the middle of a computer-generated reconstruction where you can explore the locations that feature in many of the stories of Maxwell Grantly. If you time your visit well, you can even meet the very characters that appear within these stories and chat with them one-by-one, in real time.

Here is the slurl that leads you into the heart of the city:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pfaffenthal%20Vauban/132/124/26

Enjoy yourself and who knows, you might even be lucky and meet Fingers, the pickpocket from Maxwell Grantly’s trilogy about this character.

(Sensible Internet advice: You may also meet other Second Life users, book readers and many sorts of other people from all around the globe, who are using the viewer at the same time. Many of these will be friendly and welcoming but there are times when you may cross the path of someone who is not. Sadly, I cannot control the actions of any other visitor to this three-dimensional world. It is for this reason, I would always advise that you do not allow children to wander about using this CGI software, without appropriate adult supervision.)

Meet the Characters

Wouldn’t it be amazing if, after reading a book, you could get up and immediately wander around the location of the story? How incredible it would be if you could actually explore the streets of the book’s setting and meet the characters about whom you have just read!

Well, with the power of technology, today you can!

If you want to wander around the streets that feature in the stories of Maxwell Grantly, firstly you will need a programme that will run on your PC or iMac. To do this, you’ll need to download some free 3D browsing software: the Second Life Viewer. You can download this viewer by clicking on the orange button at this link:

https://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

(Hint: this viewer runs best on a modern computer. If your computer is slow or very old, your experience may be sluggish.)

Next, after you have downloaded this viewer, just launch the software and then click on the link below, called a slurl. This slurl will transport you directly into the middle of a computer-generated reconstruction where you can explore the locations that feature in many of the stories of Maxwell Grantly. If you time your visit well, you can even meet the very characters that appear within these stories and chat with them one-by-one, in real time. (The illustration above shows my interaction with an underground child miner who I found digging in the network of tunnels beneath the city.)

Here is the slurl that leads you into the heart of the city:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pfaffenthal%20Vauban/132/124/26

Enjoy yourself and who knows, you might even be lucky and meet Fingers, the pickpocket from Maxwell Grantly’s trilogy about this character.

(Sensible Internet advice: You may also meet other Second Life users, book readers and many sorts of other people from all around the globe, who are using the viewer at the same time. Many of these will be friendly and welcoming but there are times when you may cross the path of someone who is not. Sadly, I cannot control the actions of any other visitor to this three-dimensional world. It is for this reason, I would always advise that you do not allow children to wander about using this CGI software, without appropriate adult supervision.)

Fire Starter!

I am very pleased to announce a new free eBook by Maxwell Grantly: “Fire Starter!”

When a series of fires broke out around the city, the finger of suspicion pointed to William Marley: the chimney sweep. Was he negligent with his sweeping duties? However, as is common with stories by Maxwell Grantly, all is not as you might expect it to be. Read “Fire Starter!’ to find out how William solved the riddle of the numerous chimney fires and, by doing so, saved the city’s inhabitants from their burning misery.

If you are interested in reading “Fire Starter!” you may like to know that this story can be downloaded free of charge from the iBooks store or from Kobo. Sadly, the software at Amazon does not allow a zero pricing and so (if you use a Kindle) you may also download this story – but at a very small charge. Just type “Maxwell Grantly” into the search bar at any of these three sites.