This book includes a short history of interactive narrative and an account of a small group
collaboratively authored social media narrative: Romeo and Juliet on Facebook: After Love Comes
Destruction. At the forefront of narrative innovation are social media channels - speculative
spaces for creating and experiencing stories that are interactive and collaborative. Media
however is only the access point to the expressiveness of narrative content. Wikis messaging
mash-ups and social media (Facebook Twitter YouTube and others) are on a trajectory of
participatory story creation that goes back many centuries. These forms offer authors ways to
create narrative meaning that reflects our current media culture as the harlequinade reflected
the culture of the 18th century and as the volvelle reflected that of the 13th century.
Interactivity Collaboration and Authoring in Social Media first prospects the last millennium
for antecedents of today's authoring practices. It does so with a view to considering how
today's digital manifestations are a continuation perhaps a reiteration perhaps a novel
pioneering of humans' abiding interest in interactive narrative. The book then takes the
reader inside the process of creating a collaborative interactive narrative in today's social
media through an authoring experience undertaken by a group of graduate students. The engaging
mix of blogs emails personal diaries and fabricated documents used to create the narrative
demonstrates that a social media environment can facilitate a meaningful and productive
collaborative authorial experience and result in an abundance of networked personally
expressive and visually and textually referential content. The resulting narrative After Love
Comes Destruction based in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet shows how a generative narrative
space evolved around the students' use of social media in ways they had not previously
considered both for authoring and for delivery of their final narrative artifact.
