Coming out of the IWL program, Portal Entertainment (where I’m serving as head of story development) instituted an international Storyworld writing competition for writers keen to engage with the possibilities and potential of multi-platform transmedia. The challenge was to construct a dramatically sustainable Storyworld with broad and rich potential across platforms; a Storyworld that offered dynamic contexts for compelling characters and dramatic events as well as opening up roles for the viewer to take on within that Storyworld in an immersive experience.

Certainly it was no easy task. We received hundreds of entries and the challenges, pitfalls and problems of rendering such writing was clear and apparent amid the rich and fantastic ideas submitted. In some ways the short-comings of many entries were really no different than those of traditional writing and I found myself at times penning much the same feedback on the Storyworld proposals as I would on a feature film screenplay. At other times the weaknesses of the proposals were much more specific to the demands of interaction and transmedia.

Having read through all the entries in the competition and written hundreds of pages of coverage and feedback on them, I feel somewhat like I’ve obtained a glimpse of the Transmedia writer zeitgeist - a macro-level snapshot of where the worlds writers are at right now in attempting to embrace and exploit the opportunities of a Transmedia world.

But to be more pragmatic and specific I’ve compiled my list of the top 6 tips that emerged from judging the IWL Storyworld Competition for practitioners and future proposals in this field. Some a glaringly obvious but evidently need to be said, some are more intricate and speak to the complexity of writing in this arena.

So the top 6 are…

1) Put a NAME on it..! 

I was staggered as to how many entries failed to have either a Title on the project or Name of the author present on the actual proposal (let alone contact details). And just because you’re uploading through an online submission system doesn’t mean you can assume that the reader will know your title and name. Put it on the Page…! Better yet, put it in a footer on every page. 

2) Loglines should be Short.

Your Logline is your first shot to get the assessors attention and prompt their curiosity. Assume whomever is assessing your proposal is also reading 100’s of others. In fact it’s safe to assume they are probably looking for any excuse to put as many projects on the reject pile as quickly as possible so they can spend more time on the good ones. So it is crucial your Logline gets to the exciting/intriguing/interesting central idea as efficiently as posisble. If your logline is 4 paragraphs lines long, you’ve probably missed the point of a logline. A Logline is a distillation, a concentrated expression of the central idea that compells the reader to read more. Its not about detail, its about clarity!

3) Be Relevant.

If the competition is specifically for multi-platform and immersive transmedia experiences run by a company with an obvious focus is on new technologies and interactive entertainment, please think twice about submitting your proposal for a Storyworld consisting only of Novels, TV shows and Feature Films.

4) Succinct and Focused. 

Your Storyworld shouldn’t be a bucket for every idea you’ve ever had. Complexity of itself wont make your Storyworld stronger. A strong Storyworld should have a single compelling, driving, motivating, binding central idea from which any other layers of complexity hang together. Without that central idea being clear and apparent from the Logline and Synopsis, your project can easily become impenetrable to read and comprehend.

5) Motivated Interaction and Role-Play. 

Please DO NOT write “the audience can interact with the characters online” unless you can clearly state;

a) What the Interaction is? 

and 

b) Why the audience would Want to or Need interact? 

Audiences need good reasons to become interactive in a meaningful way, they need to be motivated to interact and be rewarded when they do. Interaction is not an abstract, its the undertaking of specific actions, so define what those actions are and why the audience wants to perform them? Interaction in a narrative is effectively Role-Playing, so by allowing your audience to interact you are giving them a Role to Play. Define that role, be specific about it, what is the viewer’s job… to Solve? to Find? to Fight? to Choose? to Strategise? to Moderate? to Contribute…?

6) Multi-Plot Potential

A Storyworld built around a singular discreet plot rather than the dramatical potential for numerous plots wont work over long-form or across platforms. Design your Storyworld to be a pressure-cooker of opposing forces, ready to boil over so that when an assessor reads it they will immediately begin imagining possible plot-lines and scenarios rather see the dead-end of a single resolution.

The opportunities of narrative writing in the Transmedia, Interactive and Immersive space are matched only by the challenges and difficulties. This shit aint easy. Thankfully for any writer wanting to jump in, the good old interweb coughs up all sorts of great resources to ensure you don’t have to be reinventing the wheel and can stand on the shoulders of giants. In particular a refined online seminar video series has been produced directly from the original Immersive Writing Lab presentations and the entire set is available as an online course from Imaginox. At just £30 its a bit of bargain and offers a depth of insight you’ll rarely find elsewhere.

The overview to the IWL seminar series reads:

“It’s an exciting time to be a writer. Not only are the audiences’ attention changing around how you tell a story to them, you now have a much wider palette than ever before in which to draw them into the worlds you create; from new digital platforms (social networks, tablet computers) to reinventions of old forms (such as e-books).

This event is about helping you understand that wider palette to tell a story. Inspirational talks, demos which will help you develop stories that push the boundaries of what is possible for a protagonist, drama and audience involvement in the digital age. 

Watch the Immersive Writing Lab if you are interested in:

- Writing & Technology

- Interactive Fiction

- Storytelling that is told on more than one platform at a time

- Linear vs. Non-Linear Narrative Drama

- Character Development

What is it to be Thrilled…? What narrative concepts do we need to deploy to satisfy that contract with the audience?

Certainly there is much written about the nature of Suspense which is at the heart of generating Thrills beyond the raw kinetics of the action sequence.

Noel Carroll cuts to core with the notion that…

“We experience suspense by entertaining uncertainty regarding an unfolding event which has two logically opposed possible outcomes one moral the other immoral of which the moral outcome appears improbable and the immoral outcome appears probable.”

And A. R. Duckworth contests and expands on Carrol in a lengthy series called The paradox of Suspense 

However such compelling and conceptual understandings of Suspense and the Thriller need also to be grounded in hard narrative, scripting and creative development choices. And this is where I see two core principles of The Thriller that stem from the generation of rich Thriller Storyworlds. 

1. FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the Suspense Storyworld is Forbidden knowledge. Such knowledge is secret, protected and has the power to do great damage. It is knowledge characters are Not allowed to know. So, invariably, storylines and plots will happen when that secret, dangerous, protected knowledge leaks out, when it becomes known by people who shouldn’t be allowed to know, often people who don’t want to know and may, ultimately, wish they never knew..!

This observation of Forbidden Knowledge in a suspense story is obvious in all manner of Suspense films; notably, of course, in those of Hitchcock. Most often it’s a singular event - a crime, a murder, a corruption - which is witnessed by someone who cannot be allowed to know. At other times characters are compelled to pursue the Knowledge to discover what it is, unaware at first of its Forbidden nature. A third archetypal variation sees a character encounter the forbidden knowledge but be unaware what the knowledge is or what it means and must unravel the mystery to escape. A film like North by North West plays out in this way where the mistaken identity of the protagonist brings him into contact with the Forbidden knowledge yet the character himself does not know what that knowledge is.

In any of these variations it is the value of the Forbidden Knowledge that compels the character forward and into dramatic action. In the case of the much bigger canvas of the Storyworld which may underpin multi-platform and long-form thriller narratives, the articulation of exactly what the forbidden knowledge is, along with its value and power, is what will serve as a prime motivating force that is sustainable.

What the Storyworld writer must carefully map out is the scale, scope and ramifications of the forbidden knowledge - how big is it, how far does it spread and how much fall-out could come from the Knowledge being unleashed. (corruption, murder, conspiracy, secrets, lies) This forbidden knowledge is a central, unshakable truth of the Storyworld. Any character (or indeed audience-member participant) who comes in contract with the Forbidden Knowledge will be changed and compelled into action - they will no longer see themselves or their world the same way.

Think of your Forbidden Knowledge as Secrets and Lies - very big and important Secrets and Lies. The secret needs to have dire ramifications if it gets out, and the lies are what are told to keep the secret a secret. If you can articulate a big set of secrets and lies at the heart of your suspense Storyworld, then you will have the fuel to make that suspense propel stories, characters and audiences across episodes and platforms.

2. TWO WORLDS

The second crucial element in the Suspense Storyworld is the concept of ‘Two Worlds’. The effect of having a clearly articulated and compelling Forbidden Knowledge at the centre of your storyworld design is that you effectively create Two Worlds. One is the world outside the Forbidden Knowledge, where the secret is maintained and the characters are ignorant of the secrets and lies. The other world is the world inside the Forbidden knowledge, this is the world the characters will encounter and move into once they have transgressed and come in contact with the forbidden knowledge.

This conceptual construct of the Two Worlds is vitally important for sustainable suspense drama - particularly in a transmedia, long-form or episodic environment. In a traditional feature film narrative structure this duality would simply be the shift for a character from their Status Quo into the inciting incident that casts them into adventure. So in the example of the North by North West, the first world is the status quo for Thornhill staying in the hotel. The shift into the ‘other’ world comes when he is mistaken for another man, George Kaplan, and becomes caught up in the spy world of stolen microfilm. 

But in a Storyworld with a much broader scope than a feature film, we need to be much more complex in designing our two worlds as potentially our world will see numerous characters and audiences take various paths between the two worlds. Each of the two worlds, inside and outside, the forbidden knowledge, will have different Storyworld rules. For a character outside of the forbidden knowledge, the world will have certain expectations, behaviours and rules of normalcy. However once a character crosses over into the other world by coming in contact with the forbidden knowledge, hierarchies, behaviours and what is ‘normal’ will change radically.

These two principles - Forbidden Knowledge and Two-Worlds - are part of an approach that importantly puts the development of World first before articulation of Plot. Design and develop a powerful and dangerous ‘Forbidden Knowledge’ and then shape ‘Two-Worlds’ that are bridged by that knowledge. The more radically separate the two worlds and the bigger and more powerful the secret knowledge, the more explosive potential your suspense Storyworld will be. Characters and plots, circumstances and events, will naturally flow from such pressurised Storyworld dynamics. But if you begin with character and plot you run the risk of such characters at play in Storyworld that is not sustainable; one that quickly runs out of fuel as it tries to support ongoing, multiple or interactive dramatic experiences.