This post continues my thoughts on transmedia writing and storytelling.

Just as screenwriters of horror films write specific visual sequences and actions whose sole purpose is to make a cinema audience scream as one in a shared shock, so transmedia writers need to consider ways of triggering similar reactions in individual viewers watching their story experience unfold on a laptop, a tablet, or a smart phone screen.

Isolation

One of the effects of all the new hand-held technology (tablets etc.) is that viewers are becoming more isolated and their story experiences more individual and private. In many ways a transmedia story experience is more similar to a book reading experience than a cinema or sitting room one.

The interactivity available to transmedia writers can be used to make the story content more engaging, to draw the viewer in with each click or interaction, and to create new narrative patterns and forms that fit the multiplatform method of story delivery.

Love Affair

When you have people who love your transmedia story and who spend their precious time with it, you need to treat them with respect. You need to write a story that gives them opportunities to engage in compelling ways and to develop their own unique user experience with your story – you are forming a two-way relationship with them and you want them to engage, to tell others and to share their experience.

The transmedia story content must be organic and generated through storyworld methods. It must be organic to the story and not feel rushed or like an ill-conceived after thought because this is disrespectful to someone who is prepared to invest their time and hopefully money in your story.

Next time I will look into the changing nature of ‘the audience’.