Book excerpt: A person who understands how to communicate a story or idea through digital media has a very valuable skill in many employers' eyes. Ad companies, film production studios, game designers, and publishers constantly wrestle with ways to appeal to a Web-savvy audience. Understanding the nature of modern storytelling can make young people well equipped for a future career. Readers learn how they can start developing digital storytelling skills now, as a satisfying creative hobby and interest, and how they can use this knowledge to later break into a variety of fields, including journalism, marketing and publicity, playwriting or screenwriting, computer programming, Web development, and more.