In our final BotW of this season we look at ARGs, the history of comics in newspapers and Grace Lee’s American Zombie

Learn Something About ARGs

Learn about Alternate Reality Games, why they are great, why they are terrible and how we can make better ones.

Give Your Heroes Flaws

Everyone loves a good scar.

Make Use Of Ticking Clocks

On adding dramatic elements to your stories.

Learn About Newspaper Comics

With newspapers in dire straits no one ever remembers the comics. Learn about the history of newspaper comics and how they are dealing with the problems the industry is facing.

What Went Wrong?

A lucid look at some of the problems that went overlooked by the newspaper industry.

Citizens As Budding Reporters And Editors

Another segment to add to my all time favorite list. This is a look at the future of citizen participation in media from 1999, before everyone and their 90 year-old Aunt had a blog.

American Zombie

If you have Netflixs you should watch this movie. It’s a look at high-functioning Zombies and the problems of fear, prejudice and misunderstanding. It’s deep.

Zombies As A Metaphor

Speaking of deep, this is an exploration on how Zombies have been used as a vehicle for social commentary.

How To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse

This is what it all comes back to anyway so why not?

This week we take a look at J.C. Hutchin’s Personal Effects, the Freedom of Information Act and how to deal with lime-green, Nazi Zombies.

Show Your Character In Pain

People like to see other people in pain. It’s endearing. You should learn to apply this to your everyday life.

Understand Your Personal Myth

A look at personal myths and the art of understanding where your personality fits into the fabric of your stories.

J.C. Hutchin’s Personal Effects

Not only is this a great book, but it’s also a great example of transmedia storytelling. Needless to say, you should read it.

Freedom of Information Act

A quick tour of the Freedom of Information Act for budding citizen journalists in the audience.

Saving Newspapers

A group of clever newspaper people sit down to discuss how they can save themselves from the rising tide of the Internet. A really interesting look at some of the thoughts around what newspapers need in order to survive.

How To Save Your Newspaper

We went this long without mentioning the word “micropayment,” I think it’s about time we get on the ball – don’t you?

The Zombie Hunters

This is a really great Zombie web comic and I wanted to take one more opportunity to encourage you to give it a look.

Zombie Lake

This is to fill the lime-green, Nazi Zombie shaped hole in your heart.

Zombie Sightings Map

Afraid that you might have Zombies in your neighborhood and not even know about it. This Zombie sightings map will let you know for sure.

This week we take a look at murdering your darlings, the journalistic code of ethics and the anthropological significance of zombies eating your neighbors.

Murder Your Darlings

One of my favorite segments of all the storytelling segments we’ve done this season.

The Heroes Journey

One of the more controversial structures in hallowed halls of storytelling, explore Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and see whether you buy it.

George Orwell’s “Why I Write”

George Orwell explains why he writes, and in the process gives us a great look at why people write in general.

Journalist Code of Ethics

Understand the ethical conventions of journalism.

Reading Newspapers on Computers

What would the world be like if we could all read the newspaper from the comfort of our computer screens? Radical computer scientists in California explore this possibility.

Learning To Love Lower Profits

If I’ve learned nothing else about newspapers it’s that they’ve been in a pile of trouble for quite a while now. Take a look at some of the problems facing the industry years before the Interwebs took center stage.

Three Cases of Zombification

Zombification from a medical perspective. See three purported cases of Zombification, and what medical science discovered when they investigated.

Zombies Ate My Neighbor

You really can’t have a story about Zombies without looking at this game.

What To Do In A Zombie Attack

One of my favorite Zombie “civil defense” videos out there.

This week we take a look at simplifying your stories, the storied history of the tabloid and Clairvius Narcisse, Haiti’s most famous Zombie.

The Three Questions of Storytelling

Storytelling is full of different frameworks, and it’s arguable as to whether any of them will turn a crappy tale into something worth reading; however, it’s pretty safe to say that these are three questions that need to be answered before you even think about starting your story.

Simplify Your Stories

I don’t think this point can be said enough.

Stop Trying To Please Everyone

On the importance of realizing that it’s OK that not everyone is going to like what you do.

History of the Tabloid

I really liked this one because of the site it links to which gives you as good an explanation of the history of the tabloid as I’ve ever seen.

On The Sublime And Beautiful

Edward Burke’s look at how newspapers are going to replace books, circa 1902.

Increases In Newspaper Advertising

Everything in media is cyclical. As advertisers now are shifting from newspapers to the web, at one point they shifted just as readily from older forms of advertising to the newspaper.

The Story of Zombification

A clear, concise explanation of the process of zombification. We’re talking about Haitian Zombies not Romero’s brain-eaters.

Clairvius Narcisse

Clairvius Narcisse is one of the most famous Haitian “zombies.” Learn a bit more about this life, his death and his, er, undeath.

Bokors

Wondering who is responsible for all those crazy Haitian Zombies running around? Meet the Bokor. Which, now that I think about it, would be a great title for a movie.

This week we take a look at stories in video games, interesting ways to get newspaper subscribers and Haitian Zombie laws.

Common Literary Themes

There are between 3 and 40 literary themes that are said to drive every story ever made. No one can really agree on how many there are. We decided the best way to deal with this is to pull together a random set of them and pretend we know what we’re talking about.

Development of Stories in Video Games

A look at video games as a storytelling medium, complete with one of the best videos I’ve seen this week.

Make A Few Different Attempts

We explore the power and importance of doing things over and over again.

What Newspaper’s Need

Advertising, libel and a discussion on what newspapers need to do – circa 1890.

On Obtaining Subscribers

Let’s say that you are a newspaper that is looking to collect a few more subscribers in 1880. Sure you can give out a sewing machine like some sucker, or you can just convince every woman in town not to marry anyone not subscribed to the paper.

Newspapers Must Keep Content Free

The President of NPR explains why it is so unlikely newspapers will be able to pull themselves out of the muck by charging for their content online.

World War Z

Max Brooks is a hero to us all. This is the story of his trip into the field and how he risked life and brain to bring us real-life stories from the Zombie Apocalypse.

Zombie Types

Are you still confused by whether that decomposing fellow you saw down the street is really a Zombie? Well, this segment will make it a whole lot easier to identify the different species of the undead.

Haitian Zombie Law

There is actually a law on the books in Haiti to prevent the creation of Zombies. I am absolutely serious about this.

This week we take a page from M Night Shamalyan, we recall a time when newspapers used to be fun and we find out why Zombies don’t run.

Jungian Archetypes

You can’t consider yourself a master of stories until you take the magical, mystical tour through famed psychiatrist and lover of extended metaphor Carl Jung. Learn about his archetypes and how they can be interpreted through literary tradition.

Be Careful With Twist Endings

You know those movies that drag on for about three hours, building up some vague expectation in your mind that weird neighbor Tom has to be the killer only to pull out the alien conspiracy in the last three minutes? Yea, we hate them too.

Raise Questions In The Mind Of Your Audience

I wonder what this one could be about. I guess you’ll just have to click through to find out. Clever, right? You see what I did there?

Can Design Save Newspapers?

Famed Polish newspaper designed, Jacek Utko certainly thinks it can’t hurt and I for one agree.

Yellow Journalism

Remember when newspapers still tried to have fun with what they did? Sure some might argue that headlights like, “How Babies Are Baked” have questionable journalistic quality but I for one would read it.

Newspaper Advertising Expenditures

Sometimes we find a lots of numbers and need to throw them together into a segment. This is a fine example of just that. Learn about the decline in the newspaper advertising revenue.

Why Zombies Don’t Run

Just because it’s a drooling, slobbering corpse doesn’t mean that it has to be a Zombie. Find out why Zombies don’t run from the master, George Romero.

Braindead

Before Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson made movies like this.

Dellamorte Dellamore

This is one of the more entertaining Italian Zombie films I’ve ever come across. Scratch that, this is one of the most entertaining Italian Zombie films I would actually consider a film.