Stories & Random Access Reading (RAR)

Today, stories are read

in dramatic new ways.

BACK THEN, TODAY & TOMORROW

It served us well up to the 20th Century when radio,
telephone and TV arrived.
Today, we live in transition where the Internet and new
networks of information are blossoming into lowhanging fruit living in fertile orchards.

Text + Graphics + Links + Audio-Video + Social Media

have combined into an almost unlimited banquet of
networked information, knowledge and wisdom.
Tomorrow will bring ever-improving software programs
supporting the Internet-Of-Things where connectivity
seems to have no boundaries.
Back then and even today Johann Gutenberg and
his moveable-type printing press ruled the day.
Print and graphics smote the eye with relentless
pleasure and delight.

When massively encrypted, dynamic, distributed and

decentralized bits of information start flying around this
virtual universe, one best be prepared for CHAnGE to
become their middle name.
Maybe even their first name. And last.

This is why we're hard at work keeping the Everything

Leaks boutique (ELB) well stocked with useful content.
It's about how to live smart with CHAnGE. It's unique in
many ways.
First, over 80% of ELB is devoted to providing solutions
and less than 20% spent defining, describing and
rehashing the problems.
Second, because of the way we fund Everything Leaks
Boutique (ELB), we can publish content incrementally.
After the ELB Cover Charge is paid, the all-media
content is free for life.
This means we don't have to wait until an ongoing
Project is finished before it's published.
We just start a project and let it fly for as long as the
Community is interested.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

At this point, we could wax all intelligentsia-like. Get
all wrapped up in the fog of Pedantic Talk like this:

Narrative mode
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Point of view (literature))
The narrative mode (also known as the mode of narration) is the set of
methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses
to convey the plot to the audience.
Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the
narrative mode.
It encompasses several overlapping areas, most importantly narrative
point-of-view, which determines through whose perspective the story is
viewed;
Narrative voice, which determines a set of consistent features regarding
the way through which the story is communicated to the audience.
Narrative mode is a literary element.
The narrator may be a fictive person devised by the author as a stand-alone
entity, or may even be a character.
The narrator is considered participant if an actual character in the story,
and nonparticipant if only an implied character, or a sort of omniscient or
semi-omniscient being who does not take part in the story but only relates it
to the audience.
The narrative mode encompasses not only who tells the story, but also
how the story is described or expressed (for example, by using stream of

consciousness or unreliable narration).

The "Narrator" could also be more than one person because some stories are
from more than one point of view, showing different story lines of people at
the same, similar or different times.
It is used in film and books to illustrate the story from different points in
time and is sometimes more effective than a singular point of view because
it gives a better effect for a more complex story line.

Had enough? We thought so. While it's all good stuff,

we think the above can be left for the serious students
of writing.
We're going to just leap into the fire of SOLUTIONS.
This means how stories, information and knowledge
are going to be consumed in the future. Even today.
Again, if you've looked at our other PDF's you know
we mix metaphors like there's no tomorrow. There are
real reasons for doing so. It gets you used to reading
in a way that we think the future will bring.
That is, jumping around like a cat leaping to one
searingly hot tin roof after another.

This Cat's on a Hot Thin Roof

https://youtu.be/v5xsCmvTiNA

Most humans will be processing the multimedia

informational deluge that way.
It will be those we call Studious and Scholarly who drill
down for the full spectrum of knowledge.
ELB handles that as well.

Since the era of the caveman, stories have always had

a beginning, middle and end.

Today, stories are constructed as random scenes within

a setting. The reader first enters whatever scene they
wish and then randomly departs for other scenes any
time they want.

A writer sets the scene in time, place, history and

environment with characters and events introduced
along the way.

Essentially, they choose an entry node of a networked

storyline and then move about the storyline network in
quest of discovery or what they want to look at next.

They craft a plot with a story-beginning, story-middle

and a story-end.

It might be anything thats new, interesting and

important to their world.

Along the way, characters carry out actions intended to

fix paradoxes, conflicts and problems which are
hopefully solved.

Something that excites their curiosity and desire to

know more.

Even story structures are changing.

Or not resolved.

These nodes can be in the form of more text, media or

a link to elsewhere inside or outside the story.

Thats not necessarily true anymore.

Get ready for additional metaphor mixing to illustrate

the point

Storytelling
50,000 years ago.

Depicting Lewis & Clark crossing the Bitterroot and Clearwater Mountains and
meeting up with the Nez Perce Indians on the Weippe Prairie in todays proud state of Idaho.

FROM THE LEWIS DIARY

Or, how they made their teepees; or how they built

fires and tanned hides; or even who begat who.

After crossing the Clearwater mountains and meeting

the Nez Perce at Weippe, Lewis made this entry into his
diary:

No. They wanted to know if the tribe was friendly and

to politely meet the chief.

(Notice the relevant links to outside the story.)

September 13, 1805 Crossed Lolo Trail starving, ate
horses, candles, and portable soup.
October 6 to October 9 Met Nez Perce Indians on
Clearwater. Left horses, cached goods, built 5 dugout
canoes for trip to ocean.
October 9 to December 7 Traveled down Clearwater
River, Snake River and Columbia River to ocean.

Certainly they didnt come sauntering in, bedraggled,

cold and half-starved, to learn the history or property
lines of the Nez Perce.

Above all, they wanted to trade Quaint & Trinket for

desperately needed food and horses.
What would Chief Joseph be thinking if they had
thundered in inquiring about the history and social
structure of his tribe.
Or, the number of grizzly bears between Weippe and
the Big Water to the west?
Perhaps even asking if Chief Joseph ever pow-wowed
with Chief Seattle?
Or, moving back to the future, who was Bill Gates and
his digital tribe? Would they ever amount to anything?

Especially if Sacajawea used sign language like her

life depended on slapping the BeJesus out of a massive
swarm of Killer Bees hell-bent on annihilating all life
within six miles.
No doubt Chief Joseph would conclude this tribe of
white men (plus one black man and one Indian) had an
irretrievable urge to pass strange without any
embarrassment whatsoever.

Who ARE these people, anyway?, the great Chief

Joseph would surely mutter under his breath.
So, it's all about content and context as you link
everything together while living in the moment.

Imagine Chief Joseph's mindset and attitude if

Sacajawea had launched a cacophony of talk-talk and
more talk whilst (even a little British Talk) Lewis and
Clark put a hollow-eyed-killer stare on everybody.

Discovering, prioritizing and deciding where-I-can-gonext is the essence of playing the Serendipity Game.
Trust us; serendipity is HUGE in the world of ELB.
And your life as well.

Moving along with the

Dance Of The Metaphors.
Let's visit more stories that live in
their own time and place.

Oh, wait a second; what's that over

there on the horizon?
Another village; another knowledge
node, another House of Serendipity.
Truly, an exciting place to go.

Oregon Trail Metaphor

Evening Circle At Independence Rock

Another way of thinking about how the nature of stories

are changing is to consider a wagon train on the
Oregon Trail.
Each wagon has a family name (label, tag) and a
location on the trail and within the train. (URL, link).
Before sundown and after pulling into the Evening
Circle, they set about caring for their livestock, cooking
dinner and doing any required maintenance (fixin').
After posting guards and before settling in for the
night, they swapped stories of the days events and
wonder what tomorrow would bring. Especially, the
Great Tomorrow in Oregon.
This offered an opportunity for families to visit (social
media) with some of the 20-100 other wagon families
before bedtime.
Each wagon (label, tag) had its own story within the Big
Story and a location (URL, link) in the evening circle.

Any particular evening, a family could choose which

families to visit.
Now and then a little smile didn't hurt!

A stranger from afar could wander in and discover

where the Wagon Master (index, content search) was at
the moment. Or, a very weary family could just make a
short visit to the nearest wagon.

We call it networked Random Access Reading (RAR).

If nothing interesting was being said, they could

meander (mosey in Western Talk) on to other families
on a path to social discovery of information.

Just observe anyone with a smartphone or tablet in

their quivering hands. Observe how they fly.

Its the way many folks read today and most likely the
way people will read in the future.

The idea is you are the one choosing what part of

the unfolding Big Story in which you want to engage.
Then selecting what particular wagon family (chapter,
topic, subject) you want to know about next.
For example, imagine you're an eagle flying above the
Evening Circle of trail-weary families.
You swoop down, land wherever you want and devour
whatever juicy morsel (information, news, gossip) you
can find. Anyplace the food of knowledge exists.
SERENDIPITY Arriving.

Here's a humorous advertisement showing

what you can do with a printed book.

They almost get it. :-)

HE: C'mon, get to the damn score.

SHE: Guess what you're not getting tonight?

SO, HERE WE ARE

In one hand, printed books being used for all sorts of
things other than important reading.
And in the other hand a smartphone heavily involved in
another Mother-of-all-attention-disorders.
Imagine the mind-focusing process required when HE
comes out of his Smartphone Stupor and begins to
realize what's been lost, never to be recovered.

No wonder Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

(ADHD) is hell-bent on keeping people locked onto the
next Big Thing like Mad Hatters.
Wouldn't it be nice to clear some of the hypnotic fog
and just get on with a full reading experience?
We certainly think so.

Look what he's missing!

It's like a law of economics; what never gets produced
is already lost and will never be found.
A lot of things CHAnGEd along the time-space
continuum of that HE/SHE social media theater.
Unfortunately, HE chose a path too well traveled by.

Now, don't get depressed.

How We Structure Everything For Random Access Reading (RAR)

What Confronts Many People As They Read Today
First, notice how we desperately try to limit the number
of lines to just FIVE before we insert a white space;
there is nothing worse than having to wade through
umteen zillion (10-100+) lines of text trying to absorb
the content being presented knowing all along that
many writers (especially most academics) are relentless
in their devotion to doing just that. (With academics,
we have often encountered sentences with over 100
words and paragraphs of over 50 lines.) Further, as
pitiful as it is, these multi-one-dimensional people
actually believe they are communicators! Well, the
world of the web has a wonderful word to describe this
multi-word-multi-line-mind-bending-sense-offending
deposition of debilitating drivel.
CLUELESS!

So, how did we do?

The previous first sentence contains 61 words. Not bad
for taking just one typing-breath for the duration.
Even worse, there are 18 lines of very important
content in that first paragraph.
Of course it must be important!

You had to struggle like hell to read it. :-)

We maintain an unrelenting dedication to whack these
long-sentence eye-motes like a crazed monkey.
Eye-glazing-over may be OK for academia, but it's a
net subtraction from the sum of human existence when
it's encountered on the Internet. On with our story

We know you've been reading TEXT for a long time.

But do you really LOOK at the graphics and images?

We carefully select and curate the images (and videos)

to become part of the story.

No need to be an artist to fully appreciate what's going

on visually in photos, paintings, graphics or videos.

They're IMPORTANT for engaging and expanding your

learning experience. This means to slow down, pause
and really observe what you're looking at.

The first step for you to get the most out of the PDF's
and videos in ELB is to stop, look and listen.

Next, everything is organized so you can interact with

others and the PDF's in Everything Leaks Boutique.
Why is this so wonderful and beneficial?
Well, it's one of the reasons we chose the PDF format.
It can be read and downloaded from all screens.
We spent a HUGE amount of time, energy and money
evaluating several Flipbook software packages.
One HTML5 software package out of Hong Kong
turned out to be a long story and an unmitigated
disaster. It was so besotted with major BUGS that
we nearly lost our minds.

So, PDF files read on the latest versions of free PDF

readers can really come alive.
[We use and like both FoxIt and Nitro.]
You can visit links, take notes, highlight text or sections
and enjoy audio-video on demand. Nearly everything
you can do with a Flipbook.
BENEFIT for you. While we could embed audio and
video in the PDF's, we've chosen to simply link to
media within a particular PDF package or out to the
Internet via YouTube and others.
This greatly reduces download file size. And it gives
our readers a choice of whether to listen/watch or not.
The above is another reason why we limit PDF files to
10-30 pages and/or confine them to 3-min. to 10-min.
reading time segments.
Reading time trumps the number of pages.

Further, PDF files are ubiquitous and work better on

ALL screens. There's more but lets get back to moving
around the story village.
All the above is why we make heroic efforts to edit our
content so it's EASIER to download, read and digest.
Especially content from academics and
professionals.
We are merciless when it comes to chopping up
80-word sentences and 100-line paragraphs.
Of course, we always show links back to the originals
so the Studious and the Scholarly can wade through the
Paleo-Pedantic Swamps awash in multi-multi-syllable
words and eternal sentences.
Like the one you just read.
Finally, here's a treat to just sit back and enjoy:

http://youtu.be/bVKVB0MImOg

(Entire composition [35:36] for Grand Canyon Suite.)

You can always listen to your choice of background

music using another browser tab.

A New Kind Of Book (ANKOB) lives large in the

Everything Leaks Boutique (ELB)

Or, plug-in your iPod ear buddies.

TEXT + GRAPHICS + LINKS + AUDIO-VIDEO + SOCIAL MEDIA + COAUTHOR + TIMELY UPDATES + NEARLY EVERYTHING.

You can even turn on your radio. :-)

On any screen anytime, anywhere the Internet exists.