Senior Project Idea

This semester a lot of things happened - the most major thing was that I'm no longer an IMS minor.  Because I'll be heading out to San Francisco in about a month now, I'll be able to upgrade to an IMS co-major.  This means I will not have a senior project in not only with my Individualized Studies degree, but I have one within my IMS co-major as well.  However, I'm very lucky in the fact that I'm able to combine these projects together, into sort of... a mega-senior project.  So, here is my idea:

For my senior project I always intended on writing a novel.  With the way the project works now, my goal has been to write "most" of a novel, and have an outline for the rest.  If nothing else, I'd like to have a crappy first draft of a novel.  This would be written using the knowledge I've gained from my English and creative writing courses, and I'd try to keep in mind the audience I'm writing for (though ultimately you're supposed to write for yourself).  A lot of the information I gain from my adolescent development courses could go into character development as well, so that my characters (because they'll be adolescents) are realistic.  I'm also banking on the fact that I was one, only a few short years ago (and by some definitions I still am!).

I already have an idea of the novel I'd like to write, and here is a synopsis (I started it this past November as my National Novel Writing Month novel):

In a world of synthetic materials and things are organized by numbers and barcodes, Kaylee has lived in a world of order since birth, and she's never known anything more - she's comfortable living as she is, grateful even. She follows the rules, heading towards great things, that is until her friend Callum suddenly starts questioning everything. When he starts questioning their lifestyle, their government, he disappears. Kaylee's life no longer as ordered as she had hopped. As soon as Callum disappears, he reappears but he doesn't seem to remember who she is - in fact, he avoids her as if she has a contagious disease. Enter Robert. If Callum's strange actions didn't mess with her patters, Robert, a new student in her session throws everything off kilter. He, too, questions the way things work, the difference is that he doesn't disappear, and he seems to know what happened to Callum. Slowly he drags Kaylee into his world of conspiracy, where she soon learns her world is anything than what it seems - in fact, it's downright hostile.

Now... this is extremely rough, and barely developed, so please forgive the fact that it has no real... content or organization yet, and sounds potentially juvenile (though, you know... my audience..? yeah?).  The point of NaNoWriMo is to just get words on paper, and to have any fraction of an idea is a good thing.  So, clearly, this is a complete work in progress.

So, that's my Western component, now... for the IMS one you ask?  Well, I was introduced to the concept of “transmedia” in one of my courses this semester, and I was completely taken away with it (as you could probably tell by my "Transmedia Manifesto").  In the course that talked about it, it was in regards to different advertisement campaigns.  I then went and looked into the topic some more and I found some articles encouraging the idea of creating a story (a narrative) on multiple platforms – along with one example of an author doing just that.  From that, my idea was born.

I’m interested in creating a multi-platform experience for my “readers” to participate in – the novel being only one part of a whole.  It sounds like a large undertaking, but here is a link to the example of the other author embarking on this project: GOBZRK

I'll be following this project closely - I'm interested in seeing how it develops, and I'll participate in it as well so I can see what does, and does not work... and hopefully incorporate certain ideas into my own project.

In my case, I'd be interested in creating a website, or two (simple, blog-oriented ones probably) along with some videos, and probably twitter accounts, where people can interact with characters and become completely immersed in the world I've created.  I can see myself creating a site that is from the perspective of the government, along with one that's from the resistance.  The twitter accounts would be from various characters.  In the end, I may be able to incorporate other social media platforms, such as youtube - I'd be able to create videos from characters (I'd have to find people who closely resemble them), or public messages from the government.  There is also the option of creating a facebook community.

Basically?  With the growth of social media, the possibilities are endless.