Skeleton Creek

Initially, Skeleton Creek seems to highlight the contrasts between print and digital media. The novel accomplishes this by first comparing the two media as storytelling forms. Ryan’s inspiration drives him to “get it down on paper” (17) while Sarah has to “get more evidence on tape” (62). The differences that Carman highlights through Ryan and Sarah are primarily linked to the writing process. Ryan notes that “paper feels permanent” (60) while digital messages disappear, “[evaporating] into thin air as they’re read” (60). Ryan also connects print to the imagination, while he claims that film is grounded in reality since it “requires something to film” (30).

Ryan quickly rebuts the notion that the friends are opposites, however. Instead, he illustrates how each complements the other. Ryan prints deleted emails and includes them in his journal (see 35, 58-59, 61, and 75-77); this establishes the journal as transmedia, or an example of new media. Sarah’s video diary requires passwords available in a print novel and based on literary allusions to well-known novels and stories. Neither protagonist excludes the other’s choice of media. Instead, the theme that Carman establishes is based on multimedia literacy and how media literacy has developed and changed over time.