Campbell identified the three stages of the journey as departure, initiation, and return. Within those three stages, Campbell identified a series of steps (Campbell, 1949, pp. ix-x): Departure: The departureis the first of the three stages of the hero’s journey and consists of five steps: Call to Adventure: The call toContinue Reading

An interesting question about fiction and nonfiction transmedia storytelling was raised in a recent LinkedIn discussion. Wendy Bancroft, in the Transmedia Storytelling group, said: Most people interested in transmedia approaches have fiction in mind–stories that can move across platforms, that can change, that can involve gaming… What about non-fiction? HowContinue Reading

Different characters play different roles in a story. These roles fall into three categories (Card, 1988, p. 59), with the major characters identified in more specific roles: Major characters: The major charactersdrive the plot through its twists and turns and move the story forward. The major characters fill a varietyContinue Reading

The second category of existent is the characters (human or otherwise), which are sentient beings with the ability to feel, perceive, or to have subjective experiences. Characters have a number of properties that help define them. These include: Physical characteristics: The physical characteristics are what the character looks like. TheContinue Reading

Significant objects are one type of existent. There are two types of significant objects: Plot-Signficant: A plot-significant object has a substantial impact on the story’s plot. Character-Significant: A character-significant object has some sort of significance to a particular character but does not have a significant impact on the story’s plot.Continue Reading

Over the past few weeks we have been looking at the first (transmedia project) and second (storyworld) level design tasks. Once work at these levels is substantially complete, it is time to move on to the next level of tasks. The third level of design tasks occurs at the storyContinue Reading

As transmedia storytelling becomes more common it is being rolled out across a variety of industries and in many different applications. Entertainment The transmedia approach emerged over the past decade in the entertainment industry. The Matrix franchise was one of the early transmedia narrative successes. The use of transmedia narrativesContinue Reading

A series of technological, economic, and consumer trends are driving the development of transmedia projects as a new form of marketing, entertaining, and educating. Understanding what these drivers of change are and how they impact the emerging transmedia field is key to figuring out how to navigate a turbulent future.Continue Reading

Ryan’s description of the contents of storyworlds (Ryan, 2011) provides a starting point for the development of a systematic structure for the narrative elements of transmedia narratives. Ryan identified the content of storyworlds as existents, settings, events, mental events, physical laws, and social laws (Ryan, 2011). Chatman proposed a storyContinue Reading