The Eno Mystery: An Experiment in Storytelling
Ever think about the Loch Ness Monster? How has an entire mythology been built on this old, grainy photo? Even after the famous image from 1934 was proven to be a hoax, I still want to go to Loch Ness and look for Nessy.
That is the underlying concept of The Eno Mystery. We are creating an original, location-based mystery that anyone in the world can explore.
I’ve been experimenting for the last ten years with different forms of storytelling. I’ve studied game design, played with branching narrative, spatial storytelling, physical builds, created work with gaming engines, 3D animation and actors. My projects span traditional mediums as well as the cutting edge of technology like concepting and writing for Sphere.
One of the loveliest things I’ve learned about in the world of experience design is community building. We are in such an isolated, divided world. Anything that brings people together is a huge accomplishment. I love the idea of creating a community of disparate people to solve a mystery… and maybe just help us build a legend?
A legend by definition is a memorable story. But what makes it so sticky that we feel the need to repeat it? A legend needs to be larger than life, but just real enough to be believable. It walks the fine line between fantasy and plausibility. The more the author pulls from the real world, the more realistic the fictional parts become.
This leads me to the idea of kayfabe. The concept is from professional wrestling. The audience knows the world is fictional, but still agrees to partake in the experience as if it is real. The Eno Mystery is the same. This is not a new conspiracy theory, but rather a fictional story to explore.
When I think of bringing fiction into the real world, I can’t help but reference the OG from The Blair Witch Project fame, Mike Monello. He talks about skimmers, dippers and divers. By far the largest part of the population are skimmers. No matter how much you build out a world, most people are still passive observers. The dippers from time-to-time will tread further into interactivity, but are still mostly observers. And the divers are the dream group for most experience designers. They are game to co-create, world build and go as far as you’ll let them into the experience.
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As an introvert and skimmer myself, I mostly consider how to engage average people in an alternative form of storytelling. The most marketable narratives are still traditionally told so although many aspects of The Eno Mystery would easily be considered an ARG (alternate reality game), I wouldn’t quite categorize it that way.
ARGs have a very specific audience — their fans are puzzle-solving masters. This makes the games slightly less accessible to the average skimmer. I also find the puzzle-solving takes me out of the immersion in the story.
Instead, I turned to serialized storytelling — think comic books. They have a long history from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens to Wattpad and other novel publishing platforms that put up one chapter at a time. And the new platforms build communities through comments on the chapters.
If pressed for a category, The Eno Mystery is firmly unfiction, a great umbrella term for experiences that blur the line between fiction and reality. ARGs, analogue horror and creepypastas would also be considered unfiction.
The Eno Mystery is essentially a narrative told in pieces with space given to influence the story. Most people will follow the mystery as passive observers, but for the dippers and divers, there are ways to influence the narrative and even build their own pieces of evidence.
The website was created by a mystery character who had a supernatural experience in Eno River State Park. She thinks she can’t have been the only one — someone is making sure it remains a secret. This is why she fears exposure. The narrative is told similarly to an epistolary novel — trade letters for blog posts — where the main character is aware the public will read her writing.
The medium is not limited to words. There are also bits of story told in videos, photographs and fabricated historic evidence. The narrative can easily move across different mediums and platforms.
At Sideways Kitty we are creators of IP, so this narrative exists in the same world as another bigger, more traditional project we have created.
I leave that reveal to a later date.
So what is in Eno River State Park? If you don’t know, the park is over 4000 acres of nature preserve in Durham and Orange County, North Carolina. You don’t need to travel there to find out. We invite you to explore EnoMystery.com. The story has begun, but is far from finished. Help us solve the mystery.
