I am really enjoying reading the Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling, and I’m finding a lot
of interesting and relevant points to incorporate into my character’s story,
and my group’s overarching story.
One of the first things the author, Andrea Phillips,
discusses is the importance of worldbuilding, as she says on page 43, “…the
most effective tool is to actually create a small piece of your world and give
it to your audience to play with.” Because my group is telling a story set in a
future time period, and in a world that functions a lot differently from our
own, I think it would be really cool to create a physical artifact like
Phillips suggests. In the universe of our story, people are sorted into social
classes, and the very poor are used as physical labor for the rest of society,
so perhaps some sort of government documentation papers would be an
interesting, physical property for worldbuilding.
Another interesting point was how Phillips warns on page 48
that, “a common rookie mistake…is to place a character’s online presence in an
unchanging state.” This is something I am really aiming to avoid with my
character. Because she owns her own business, I am going to use her character
blog as the website for “Mystical Madeline’s – Card & Palm Readings.” Her
“psychic” abilities play a big role in the group story, so I want to be sure
that I utilize her blog to emphasize her abilities and drive forward her
interest in these activities.
The section on backstory and exposition was also very
intriguing. My character actually has a very elaborate back-story, describing
how she made it to the NYC-esque city where our group of characters finally
meets. Madeline’s backstory helps create her personality, and how she reacts in
certain situations, however her history never plays a huge role in the group
story. It’s there to give Madeline more depth, and make her seem more real as a
person.
Another thing that Phillips stresses is the importance of
conflict in creating a story. Although our group plot has a clear state of
conflict, I am not 100% certain on my character’s place in the conflict yet. I’m
not sure what she has at stake, if anything at all. Phillips suggests thinking
of something your character wants most in life, and then think of a situation
in which they can’t have it. This is something I am going to keep in mind, as I
continue to develop Madeline as a character and I try to find a balance between
her backstory, her place in our group story, and her own personal conflict and
resolution.
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