Become A Better (And Future-Friendly) Storyteller: Embrace Other Media
By J.C. Hutchins | October 28, 2010 |
I submit this for your consideration: Expand and improve your media vocabulary. It might positively impact your career now, and certainly will in the future.
I define “media vocabulary” as the various media one uses to tell resonant stories. Since most readers of this blog are authors, I reckon we’re fluent in the vocabulary of text-based storytelling. But how many of us have more than a pedestrian consumer’s knowledge of other media such as video, audio, photography, or graphic design? How many of us use those media in our stories?
Based on anecdotal and professional experience, I believe in my marrow that now is the time for talespinners to get savvy with several storytelling media. Within years, I expect we’ll see an explosive rise of enhanced ebooks, app-based fiction and transmedia narratives that will leverage technologies and trends that have already become mainstream.
Fret not, hand-wringing wordherding purists: These multimedia — or as I sometimes call them, “mergemedia” — stories will never replace a printed book or text-only ebook. But publishers will soon get into the enhanced narrative business in a big way, and will keenly quest for stories that organically incorporate disparate media into cohesive, resonant narratives.
And who better than you to deliver that very thing? You’ll be a hot tamale, on the front lines of a business trend that’ll reinvent the way audiences experience stories.
Few authors are prepared for this dramatic storytelling shift. I’m blessed to say I’m one of them. I recently co-wrote a novel that included tangible artifacts that came with the book — real-life, convincing items such as IDs, business cards, family photos and more. These artifacts had clues hidden within them. When readers combined clues in the novel’s text with clues in the artifacts, they could experience more of the story in other media: audio phone messages, fake character blogs, websites of locales mentioned in the book, and more. They learned aspects of the story my novel’s hero never discovered — including a beyond-the-book twist ending.
I’ve dabbled in video storytelling. I’ve written screenplays for an animated web series. I was Head Writer for an immersive transmedia online narrative that promoted a Discovery Channel show. I’ve recorded my own audio fiction, been a voice actor for more than a dozen other audio fiction projects, incorporated photography and graphic design into my stories … and even crafted book promotions that invited my fans to become “patients” in my fictional insane asylum.
Am I exceptionally gifted in all of these media? Of course not. But I’m clever, creative and curious enough to know it’s in the best interest of my career to bust beyond any self-inflicted Perception Prison and just be a “writer” or “novelist.” I’m a multifaceted Storyteller. If I can’t stellarly execute a particular multimedia storytelling element, I’ll ask around until I find someone who can help realize me. That’s what the Internet is for.
I understand, as you should, that different media convey different narrative information and evoke different emotional reactions. We, as storytellers, should absolutely leverage that to our advantage. Consider this:
- A smartly-crafted paragraph about an elderly woman’s house burning down
- A photograph of her porcelain doll collection by the window, ablaze
- Video of those doll’s faces shattering from the intense heat
- An audio recording of the woman wailing at her loss, with the roar of the inferno and sirens in the background
Now consider these related — yet unique and equally emotionally resonant — elements presented together in a cohesive, organically-constructed narrative, experienced on a hand-held device. An iPad. An iPhone. The next generation Kindle. A laptop. Doesn’t matter.
What matters is this isn’t a gimmick. This is, very likely, the future of storytelling.
By dipping your toes into media other than text — be it writing for the screen or comic book, envisioning cool opportunities to take your story “beyond words” and into a medium that appeals to an entirely different sense (and evoke unique emotional reactions), or developing and deploying story-enhancing online destinations (such as a fictional company’s website) — you’re expanding and improving your media vocabulary. This will expand and improve your storytelling skills, and will differentiate you from the thousands of other writers who merely put one word in front of the other.
Differentiation is good for business. As I wrote this post, I received an email from an independent game developer who wanted to hire me for some voice acting work. That opportunity never would’ve occurred had I not expanded my media vocabulary to include audio storytelling years ago. (I said yes to the offer. That’s paid work, homes.)
Same goes for my transmedia novel work and the Discovery Channel gig. I created narratives using several media, became well-known for them, and was hired to participate in those projects. I can’t guarantee that you’ll experience similar opportunities, but your chances are hella better when you get experimental and go beyond your creative comfort zone.
How do you start down this path? I won’t waste precious words, or your time, with a technical how-to. We’re nowhere near ready for that. Instead, let me offer some thoughts on how to get your creative mind into the philosophy fueling my perspective. You’ve spent years crafting tales with words. You need to think beyond words.
Noodle on your work in progress, and then ask yourself questions such as:
- Are there ways to incorporate narrative portals to, say, a website where more narrative information can be delivered in an unconventional way? (Such as a character’s video blog.)
- Can you leverage real-life everyday objects and conventional behavior in new and interesting ways? (Such as including a phone number in your story — which is actually a free Google Voice number you’ve registered — for people to call and hear a message from the antagonist.)
- Are there familiar items that can enhance your narrative by adding an element of “real world” credibility to your story? (Such as fake classified blueprints, viewable at a password-protected website — a site mentioned in your story.)
- Can you deliver a kind of real world interaction between your audience and characters? (Such as a blog written by your character, who responds to fans who comment on her posts.)
I’m scratching the surface here — only your personal knowledge of your story and creative curiosity can determine if what you’re presently writing can benefit from these “beyond the page” experience-based narrative tools. But my point should be clear: these narrative opportunities exist, and can be downright cheap (or free) to execute.
We storytellers now stand at the convergence of several world-changing trends: cheap tools to help us create multimedia story elements … increasingly available (and affordable) Internet access for consumers … portable digital devices that can talk to the Web and play that multimedia … and an always-on 24/7 resource (the Web) that can put us in touch with creators who can assist us, should we not have the skills to execute our projects on our own.
There’s never been a better time in history to be a storyteller — and there will likely never be a better time for you to become a first mover in what will soon become a prosperous storytelling space. If you’re reading the same writing on the wall that I am, you’ll want to start expanding and improving your media vocabulary.
You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be creative, and ask for help if you can’t execute on your own.
Don’t let the future of storytelling pass you by. It’s already here.
J.C. Hutchins crafts award-winning transmedia narratives, screenplays and novels for companies such as 20th Century Fox, A&E, Cinemax, Discovery, FOX Broadcasting, Infiniti and Macmillan Publishers. His latest creative endeavor is The 33, a monthly episodic ebook series.
Within years, I expect we’ll see an explosive rise of enhanced ebooks, app-based fiction and transmedia narratives that will leverage technologies and trends that have already become mainstream.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve already thought about an app to develop for my wip–something that would seriously enrich the story experience. I couldn’t do it on my own, but I’ll find someone to help when the time comes.
Great post, J.C. Thanks.
When I first saw the title of this post, I was quite wary. I hoped it wasn’t going to be yet another post about how the e-books are going to take over publishing. But I am glad to have been pleasantly surprised.
This post was a delight, and what wonderful ideas. I am all for branching out, broadening horizons and taking advantage of technology we have – as long as our paper books continue to grace our bookshops :-)
Already thinking of ways I can use this with my current novel project. Thanks Hutch!
Very well said. I couldn’t agree more.
And I appreciate the “none of this replaces text or books” sentiment. Too often, the reaction to new ideas/technologies escalates rapidly to the point where new and old media become an adversarial Us vs. Them debate. History shows us, more often than not, these things end up being complimentary (if not collaborative).
Good stuff, sir.
“Fret not, hand-wringing wordherding purists.”
LOL! That is all. :)
I love when someone teaches me to use another part of my brain. Thanks for giving me some great ideas for how to expand my own storytelling. Also, thank you for the positive spin on this post. I agree that there’s never been a better time, and it’s refreshing to read that others think so, too.
Great post!
Sigh… So, I’m not disagreeing with you. I just… don’t want to take part in this revolution. I’m all about staying in the loop and trying new things, but at the end of the day, I want to write. Not invent multimedia books, but WRITE. I have NO problem with someone else taking my words and creating apps and videos and whatever other offshoots there may be — I just don’t want to be the one responsible for all that.
Maybe I’ll change my mind someday… but if I don’t, I hope there’s still a place for fuddy duddies like me.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by J.C. Hutchins, Scott Roche, ThereseWalsh, T.M. Camp, T.M. Camp and others. T.M. Camp said: RT @jchutchins: My new post at WU is up. Embracing other media makes you a better storyteller: https://bit.ly/dAeLQL If you dig, plz share! […]
@Kristan: Thankfully, no one is forcing you — or will ever force you — to move in this creative direction. You’re no fuddy-duddy; you’re passionate about writing, and text-bound narrative.
In defense of the position I present here at WU: all of the storytelling techniques I mentioned hinge upon one remarkable commonality: writing. A writer must script those video clips, craft the words that would be heard via audio, and author website content (such as fake blog posts or fake corporate website content), and conceive the contents of a story-enhancing photo.
If you truly “want to write” as you say, there’s plenty of that to be had in the emerging model I describe. :)
I love this revolution. I love that storytelling is evolving. I love that it is expanding, luring people who aren’t “book lovers” into its fold. There has never been a better time for a writer to reach those non-book lovers with our stories than right now.
Mr. Hutchins,
This is quite a lot to take in. As Kristan said, I write too. I have an open mind to new and creative pieces of work, but for me, I’m just going to sit in front of my laptop everyday and try to create the best story I can each and every time.
The comment about fake I.D. and clues left behind for the reader to figure things out and eventually get to an altered ending is something I wouldn’t partake in.
I mean no disrespect. I’m a reader too though and that kind of gimmicky thing would make me not read a book. I just want the author to tell me a story. I then read the story and am enriched by it.
People have tried many things in the past, but for hundreds of years, readers have parted with their money to buy books without gimmicks. That won’t change.
The only recent change that has seen a welcoming hand are enhanced e-books which adds a huge value to the reader.
Thanks for an informative post. I agree with the message of opening ones mind, just not all the details on how that mind is open.
I hear what you’re saying. I’m open to all sorts of new things. I love advances in technology. I’m a bit of a geek. I’m also a die-hard reader. It wasn’t hard for me to switch to e-books because I enjoy convenience and technology doesn’t put me off. But, I’ve spoken to many people and a huge amount are resistent to even switching to e-reading. I think this model will probably appeal more to non-readers, or even casual readers. If it brings in more readers, though, it can’t be a bad thing.
The thing, and the only thing, that puts me off from enhanced and multi-media books, is that it will no longer be my own imagination driving the experience. That’s the point of books from the beginning. I don’t want to see pictures of the main character. I want to see him/her in my mind and picture them the way I want to see them. That’s why I’m also against too much description, other than stand-out features. Give me a couple of parts and I’ll put together the rest. We need to remember that this is a huge part of the reading experience.
So, again, I’m not against this model. I love all kinds of new ideas. But, I don’t think authors need to get bent out of shape about it, either. The main storytelling media will always be around in its pure form. Tell a good story in words and people will be hooked and ask for more.
Thanks for a good, though-provoking post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmedia_storytelling
I’ve always felt, if you want your novel to make a great screenplay, you should write/convert to screenplay yourself. If you want to turn your novel into a graphic novel, you should write it yourself.
But another and somewhat more abstract consideration is, write your stories in such a way that they can easily be adapted.
In computer programming there is an idea “portable code.” This means the way the code is actually written and logically structured makes it easy to run that code in any other type of implementation (Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, Xbox, Playstation).
I find it beneficial to think about writing/storytelling in the same way. I am always asking myself, “How can I write this in a way that is the most medium/platform agnostic?”
@Daryl: I dare not question your judgment or feedback; it is as personally valid as mine.
I, however, cannot ignore the increasing ubiquity of access to the Web, the astounding proliferation of digital devices capable of touch-based interaction and multimedia playback, and the compelling reality that the way we experience stories is already radically changing.
Further — and most important — the way young people experience stories is particularly compelling. Theirs is a generation of engaged, multimedia-savvy consumers who haven’t experienced the decades-long legacy of the printed page. Their media fluency is diverse. Most authors’ vocabulary is limited to text-only for it is the vocabulary in which they’re most comfortable.
Ignoring the creative potential of the storytelling I describe in my post is a missed opportunity, by my reckoning. As a creator and career-minded author, I am obligated to acknowledge and — whenever possible — cater to the expectations of my audience … be those expectations be established, or emerging ones.
@Brenda: I truly appreciate your thoughts. Permit me an alternative perspective to your resonant comment: “The thing, and the only thing, that puts me off from enhanced and multi-media books, is that it will no longer be my own imagination driving the experience.”
There is great truth to that. However, as authors, we must acknowledge that the expectations and experiences we personally imprint upon our enjoyment of a story may not necessarily align with others’.
In a landscape in which the storytelling techniques I described are already a reality — and in which readers’ expectations may already be shifting in meaningful ways — authors may benefit more by catering to the tastes of audiences who can monetarily support their creative efforts, and unlearning their own entrenched expectations.
If those audiences are indeed “text-only” readers, “text-only” authors are five-by-five. If those audiences, particularly younger ones or older outliers like myself, have more multimedia-centric sensibilities, authors who choose to ignore those consumers risk becoming increasingly irrelevant as the years go on.
I echo some of the same sentiments as Brenda and Daryl, so I’m still not sure where I ‘stand’ on the topic. While I agree that younger audiences embrace and demand more interactive experiences, I’m just not sure how I would incorporate this model into women’s literary fiction without it feeling ‘gimmicky,’ as Daryl points out (I, too, would not opt for this alternative &would not buy a book if it were presented, hoping to use my own imagination to fill in the blanks).
That touches upon what Brenda says. For me, the reading experience is all about MY imagination and its melding with the author’s written word. Isn’t that somehow lost when so many extraneous interactive options are provided? Doesn’t it, in some ways, detract from the ‘reading’ experience?
All that being said, I DO understand and appreciate the business principles behind getting on board. If you lose one reader who does like interactive options, that’s one too many. And, at the end of the day, marketing is what drives book sales… But myself – a TRUE fuddy duddy, I guess … you will have to pry my printed, deliciously-smelling inky books from my hands. That, in itself, is a sensory experience for me that I can’t get from an e-reader. I’m trying, though. And I am trying to be open-minded. I AM entertaining the thought of an e-reader purchase … kicking and screaming, but trying nonetheless.
I agree with this post. I’m still a bit wary of multi-media books, simply because I don’t think many of them get it — I don’t want my novels turned into picture books, or get a book trailer in the middle. But I think novelists especially need to think of their work as intellectual property, rather than simply a novel. And I don’t think that it means we need to become screenwriters or comic book junkies: I think it does mean getting to know people in other parts of the media world, and thinking collaboration.
I definitely think you’re onto something. It has always been important that we as content creators remain keenly aware that the way we experience things personally does not apply to all or even a majority of our consumers. Me personally, I like to read text – ebook or paper doesn’t matter. Video, ancillary stuff, even audiobooks are not my thing as a consumer. But when I’m creating content, I’m not a consumer, and it is critical to remember that.
Evo Terra at podiobooks constantly harps on this – there’s no right or wrong format for consumption, it should be about giving our customers options. Sure, you sometimes have to make choices, but the default/starting position should be to ask how many different ways can I make this available.
To that end, I can speculate about two things:
1.I suspect it will be about options – giving the consumer choices about what/how to consume the work. Any given consumer may want to read just the text. Others may want to chase down all the cool clues, as in Dark Art. Others may want eardrum-pounding audio when the serial killer twists the knife a final time. Offering all these options will simply appear to more people.
2.Almost counter-intuitively, all this stuff is going to need to be seamless. Along with the propensity for multimedia experience, each generation has shorter attention spans. Web developers know that if you make someone go more than two clicks to get what they want, you start losing a lot of people. There are many ways that this can be done, and I suspect we’ll see some huge steps in this direction even over the next 1-2 years. At some point soon, publishing a multimedia “book experience” will become almost as easy as publishing a text-only book to Smashwords is now. And of course, as each improvement/development occurs, creators who remain on or even help define the cutting edge will wind up being at an advantage.
So on the one hand, I agree with some of the commenters who just want to write text. I share some of that feeling. On the other hand, I want people to experience my stories. That’s why I have recorded them in audio form. There’s no shame in just wanting to write. But at some point you need to ask the question, do you want other people to read what you wrote? If the answer is yes, you can’t reject newer and cross-media options unless you have decided to accept the pros and cons of that decision with eyes wide open.
I think J.C. makes some really good points here.
Personally, I’m a traditionalist when it comes to books. I’ve only read one book on my e-reader so far, and I’m not sold yet. I love the experience of the world of the book itself, incorporating my imagination into that of the author’s and staying there.
But…
Other people might want something else. I don’t know how good I would be at planting clues, etc., in the way described above, but I can think back to books I’ve read that I’ve loved so much I didn’t want the experience to end. What if it didn’t have to? What if readers could explore the setting more without ever leaving the book, or get to know a character better outside the narrative, or learn more about an issue or a problem touched on in a character’s life? The possibilities really are endless.
Those of us who want to stick to a more traditional reading experience can still do that, and as writers, we still need to write excellent books to provide that experience. But once we’ve written those stories and those characters, it might actually be fun to see what else we can do with them for readers who might enjoy a little more.
I’ve been kicking around the idea of writing a fictional blog with photos, video, and characters who respond to comments. After your post here, I’m inspired to take a crack at it. If anything, just for the creative challenge (and for the fun I suspect it would be).
Thank you!
[…] JC Hutchins blog post on Multimedia and Storytelling and it got me wondering if multimedia is the future of storytelling. In a nutshell the blog post […]
This has me thinking. There was a discussion between an author and editor Patrick Neilsen Hayden where the author was not interested in extra things attached to his book (specifically it was tshirts and art and tangential products, but I think it can apply to other methods of storytelling too) and said he was good at writing, and that’s what he wanted to do. PNH said* “if only life were so perfect that we could do only what we were good at and didn’t have to do anything else.” Meaning yeah, you’re a writer, and you’re good at it, but the way the world is going, it may not be enough.
*I searched for this discussion to link to it and quite exactly, but I couldn’t find it. Google fu fail.
One of the hardest things I’ve had to think about when I’m creating is that not everyone reads like I do. There will be people who are more into multimedia stuff than me, and people who will be less into it than I am. If YOU don’t like something, your readers may still be into it. And I’m not talking plot – you should write the story you want to tell – but I’m talking book trailers and physical elements and character blogs and myriad other storytelling methods to try. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it – and it doesn’t mean your publisher may not ask you to do it if they think it will help sell the book.
Just read this, thought of you and this post, J.C.:
“Random House releasing virtual baby app for iPhone”
https://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/39261/Random-House-releases-virtual-baby-app-for-iPhone
(To support a book, natch.)
@Therese: Hah! A good example of tech-fueled integrated marketing. The next step is the integrated narratives I mentioned in my post. :)
I resonate some with Brenda above. The struggle I have been having with “enhanced” ebooks is knowing where to find balance between features that actually enhance and features that only distract. Better yet, how does an author provide enhancements in such a manner so that readers/experiencers can pick and choose which enhancements add to the story and which ones pull them away from it? “Seamless” seems like an awfully difficult mark.
Yes, David. “Seamless” is a difficult mark to hit. That’s why it’s called “work.” :)
Good post and it certainly made me think.
I write children’s stories and this kind of xmedia writing is be very appealing.
I can see the possibilities and (like everything) when done well this could be great. As long as the features don;t overshadow the actual story.
Great post! Reminds me of how earlier in my writing efforts, I decided i could possibly have a career in helping companies promote their logos due to my great writing. Especially when i can produce a four paragraph story from just 3 words. A technique my teacher used. As a memoirist, i’m also thinking of changing to fiction.
Now it’s time to reach out! Thanks for the incite.
However, I must admit, that i am sometimes bothered by the new digital era.