Storytelling apps for interactive reading

If you are someone who loves to read, but simply can’t seem to find the time to snuggle up on the couch with hot cocoa and a great book, here are some apps you can use

Audiobooks have become extremely popular in recent times. They are convenient, easily accessible and allows room for multitasking. All you need is a smartphone or a tablet.

Many storytelling apps have upped the game by making it possible for readers to not just listen to the text, but thoroughly enjoy and experience the work through their interactive features such as decision trees and role play options.

This allows listening to books a more active experience.

If you are someone who loves to read, but simply can’t seem to find the time to snuggle up on the couch with hot cocoa and a great book, here are a few storytelling apps you can use.

Episode

The storytelling network and platform features interactive stories, where the readers’ choices decide the path of the story. The animations also make the reading experience exciting. Some of the stories feature celebrities or movie characters. It also allows writers to create their own story, and readers to put themselves in the middle of the book by making themselves the central character.

Plop Stories

It is a place for storytelling as well as a platform for writers to share their own stories and get paid in return. Founded by Anushka Shetty and Vineet Shetty, the app was incubated at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore. The app aims to re-introduce storytelling for the youth through simulations and role playing. Their main focus is to give a slight nudge to the fringe readers and keep them hooked to the stories via chats. Gifs, audio and animations are woven into the stories.

Hooked

The stories on this app follows a particular format; they are chat stories where the story follows a conversation between two characters. The stories are pretty cliché, but have a lot of cliffhangers involved.

Storytel

The Swedish audiobook subscription service launched in India last year. It currently houses over one lakh audiobooks and ebooks in English and regional languages. If you are someone used to reading more than one book at a time, you can also switch between multiple audiobooks. They also have an option, which allows you to hear the book in your favourite celebrity’s voice. Konkana Sen Sharma, Kubra Sait, Tom Hanks, Kate Winslet Sonali Bendre to authors like Michelle Obama, Stephen Fry, Lorelei King and others have lend their voices.

Spellbinding

An offshoot brand by Commaful, a popular platform for sharing short stories, fanfiction, visual stories and more, Spellbinding is a place for short stories told in a comic or graphic novel style. The app is particularly popular amongst teens. Most stories published on the app are written originally by short story writers on Commaful.

(All apps are available on Play Store and App Store.)