Hollywood Reports Potter Project -
Web site gets creative juices flowing Summary:
Even though they got the company name wrong, and neglected to mention our site name, the super popular magazine posted a positive write-up about us today.
Article: Quote:
Storylines Web site gets creative juices flowing
By Andrew Grossman
The next David Chase, J.K. Rowling or David Mamet just might be surfing at www.potterproject.com, courtesy of a New York start-up called My Two Storylines.
The project has won over a nationally known English teacher and Yale instructor who was so impressed she vowed to promote it in an educators' newsletter.
"It (connects) reading and writing to technology in a really interesting way," says Kylene Beers, editor of Voices From the Middle, the journal of the National Council of Teachers of English and a senior reading researcher at Yale.
Now the company is looking West and believes it will find a studio partner soon. What producer, after all, would not want fans writing scenes -- not to air, but to fill a creative need -- about their show in a controlled and supportive Web community, and then have thousands of others reviewing and picking the best ones?
That's what My Two Storylines is doing, using Rowling's Harry Potter stories as a pilot project.
The company is the brainchild of three men: filmmaker partners Craig Singer and Chris Williams, and Williams' brother David.
"Craig was struck (by) how everyone he encountered had a creative itch to scratch," Chris recalls. The partners also took notice of the dearth of online activities that encourage reading and creative writing, rather than just going to chat rooms. The light bulb went on after David Williams discovered "fan factions" -- online communities composed largely of teens with a passion for a franchise like Harry Potter.
From there emerged basically a classic story-telling game combined with a group that encourages people to either write or think about what someone else has composed.
"It connects reading and writing so kids begin to see that those two things are really two sides of the same coin," Beers marvels, adding that the project helps kids learn to dissect stories for creative strengths and shortcomings.*
"Too many times teachers and parents segment and put reading in one corner and put writing in another corner, and kids don't learn to read like a writer or write like a reader," she says.
At the Web site, the creators provide a loose structure to introduce the seven-week arc: how the young wizard Harry could go back in time to save his dead parents. Each week, they provide a general outline for writers to follow such as, "Create a scene where Harry gets the desire to go back in time, and find the means to do so."
Teenagers, 75% of them girls, make up 90% of the community, but adults have copped two of the five writing awards. There are about 5,000 members, and the site has received a total of 11,200 submissions in the form of scenes and comments.
Who decides the winners? Everyone does. Any member can comment on each entry, and they vote twice a week to select four finalists and a winner.
"Ninety-9% of the criticism is amazingly constructive," David Williams says, adding that the partners are surprised by the high quality of the writing.
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The real company name is "My2Centences" and our site name is "SnitchSeeker.com". I wish this Andrew Grossman guy posted his e-mail address along with the article. That way we could all thank him for the news, BUT point out a few of his flagrant errors. And he calls himself a Journalist? No wonder you can only believe half of what you read these days.
Anyway, there's even more to the article, so head over to their site if you want to read the rest.
Hollywood Reporter