The Story Lab – Week 3: Transmedia and Audiences
Through this week’s reading, Max Giovagnoli discusses the relationship between transmedia and its audiences and what makes an effective story work. If the story is crossing multiple platforms, which it must considering it is a transmedia property, the links and explanation of the relationship between the various mediums needs to be clear. If a link is hard to believe, that is to say it makes little sense to connect two mediums, than the audience will be pulled out of the narrative and so transmedia stories need to feel natural for them to succeed.
A way to achieve this is the repetition of hooks, bridges and links between platforms to create various entry points into the story. If an someone becomes aware of the narrative halfway through it’s run, they need a point of access that is understandable for them and does not rely on them being present from the beginning to enjoy the experience. One way to do this are narrative hooks which involves seeding ideas that will come up again later on in the story, making it feel more like a journey and building on natural curiosity to reach a fulfilling payoff.
A second way to continually engage an audience is frequent clarification. Repetition of the main plot points allows for people to enter the narrative at any point in time yet to ensure current players do not become bored and annoyed at the constant reminder, the repetition needs to be done in various was so the audience does not feel like they are being spoon fed.
To create an engaging transmedia story, the creator must be aware of their audience throughout the entire process.
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