---
title: Wink!
author: Irmak

---

# Wink!

### A Prototype for Interactive Children's Literature

Wink is a prototype for an interactive picture book platform. This platform aims to make reading into a mindfull and thought provoking process by using interactive and playful elements, multiple stories within one narrative and sound elements. Especially today where consumerism and low attention span is a rising issue especially amongst young readers, this was an important task to tackle. The thought of Wink emerged to find a more sustainable and creative way of reading for elementary school children.

!["a tag made by a participant in the public moment at XPUB studio. Trying to understand different approaches to certain emotions/states for a bee"](../irmak/improv.JPG) 

!["From the event at Leeszaal West, experimenting with knots and poetry. How can we see movement in text?"](../irmak/leeszaalknotpoems.jpg) 

!["From the event at Leeszaal West. Some of the results of knotting text"](../irmak/knotpoems2.jpg)

Working as a children's literature editor for years, I came to a realisation that picture books were turning into another object that kids read and consume on daily basis. At least this is what I observed in Turkey. Teachers and parents were finding it difficult to find new books constantly or were tired of rereading the same book. As a young person in the publishing sector, I believe there should be more options for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But moreover a "book" that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with. So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and named it, "Bee Within". 

!["Example page from the print version of the picture book."](../irmak/print3.jpg) 

!["Example page from the print version of the picture book."](../irmak/print4.jpg) 

Bee Within, is a story about grief and it is based on my experiences throughout the years. I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it multiple times over the past years, simultaneously with new experiences of loss. In the end, I believe the story turned out to be an ode to remembering or might I say an ode to not being able to forget or an ode to the fear of forgetting which I now think is a great and sweet battle between death and life. I think it is an important subject to touch upon, especially for children dealing with trauma in many parts of the world. 

!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/print1p.jpg) 

!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/printp2.jpg) 
    
Over the past two years, experimenting with storytelling techniques, interactivity options and workshops with children and adults, around reading and doing various exercises on Bee Within, I improved the story to be a more playful and interactive one which can be re-read, re-played and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all children. 

!["The twine map of text based story, reachable from Bee Within by clicking to hear more about Gray the tree."](../irmak/twine.png)

!["Click game story of the Queen Bee that is reachable within Maya's main storyline."](clickgame.png)

Here is some more documentation from the beggining of this journey towards making accesible interactive narratives... 

!["A small sequence of onclick animation for Bee Within"](../irmak/animationseq.png) 

!["Fiction Friction cards from SI20, working on storytelling of collective traumas"](../irmak/fictionfriction.CR3)