Narratus is a mobile app built around a form of collaborative creative writing that has previously been limited to self-organizing groups--e.g. message board threads and subreddit forums, etc.--but has until now lacked a dedicated platform. Users on Narratus generate what we describe as crowd-sourced stories, where each segment of 250 characters or less is the contribution of a different user.
The organizing principle underlying these stories can be summarized as, "What happens next?"
All users of Narratus can browse all the stories featured on our custom database, regardless of whether or not they own an account. To actually contribute to a story or create one of their own, a user can sign up for an account with the app. A logged-in user can follow any story and has the ability to submit contributions to continue any story that is currently open for submission, putting their own stamp on any given work.
Signing up also gives the user access to a personalized dashboard that features a list of stories owned by that user, as well as stories that are not owned but are followed. Perhaps the user has contributed to these followed stories, or perhaps they just find them interesting and ask themselves, "What happens next?"
Each story is owned by a user, who can exercise the following privileges:
- Determines the title and genre of the story, along with a short blurb about it and the opening snippet of 250 characters to get things started.
- Snippet submissions are sent to a queue that only the owner of the story can view, from which they can select their favorite choice to add to the story and continue it, allowing them to maintain some measure of control over the quality of work as well as fomenting competition between other users to submit their best work.
- Once a submission is chosen, the queue empties and people can once again submit their takes on what happens next. But the user who was accepted has to wait for someone else to be picked before they can contribute again!
- In addition to managing the next piece of any given story, the owner of the story can close the story at any time, e.g. if they feel the narrative has reached a good ending point. Stories can be as short as a flash-fiction piece to potentially sprawling epics with numerous participants. And sequels are always an option!
So what happens next for Narratus?
More than building a project that we can be proud in, we also feel that the Narratus platform lays the foundation for an entirely new social media channel that is not currently being served. The potential features and functionality that could be implemented in this is a long list indeed, and we look forward to the opportunity to continue building it out beyond the MVP.
Front End iOS Team: Christina Lee, Mike Miksch, Serg Tsogtbaatar.
Back End Javascript Team: Allie Grampa, Michael Padget, Shelly Tang, Caleb Wells.
Special thanks to: Adam Wallraff, Scott Schmidt, Erica Winberry, Jeremy Moore, and Cathy Oun for all their help and guidance.
The code in this project is licensed under MIT license.