OUAN601 - Creating a Story World / Transmedia Universe

Inherently, the creation of a story world and a transmedia universe is a complex and difficult undertaking. This became apparent to me quickly and the more media, characters, and stories that were added to the project, added another layer of complexity not just to the story world but also to the creation process. The story explores characters within this world managing and attempting to survive by the sudden onset of not only this threat, but the threat of other humans displaying desperation and a willingness to do anything to protect people they care about.

At the beginning of the project given the span of the undertaking it was difficult to determine where exactly to start and I found myself moving around and working on different areas simultaneously with the intention of creating cohesion where possible. The creation of a transmedia production bible was imperative to the success of the project as it acted as a type of manual where all of the ideas, characters, potential narratives, media and rules for engagement were held. By keeping this updated I found the management of the project as a whole much easier and it was in some way a representation of the project as it was increasingly scaled up and contained more information. I spoke about this throughout my essay and it became apparent to me also after talking with Jay Bushman and Andrew Merkin but transmedia is not just about gathering as much media as possible and pushing out a story. Rather, establishing the best combination of media in relation to a particular genre or story type is imperative to the success of a story world in terms of its appeal with an audience. It was quite easy for me to instinctively know which types of media would work because for this project I was often playing with tropes and a tried and tested method within the realms of transmedia storytelling. I also had The Walking Dead to model my project off in terms of their exploration of character and the way character adapt to the world around them. I think overall, it helps when creating a story world from nothing to have as much information about that world as possible. I did encounter the problem of attempting to write a narrative or a character for example and have to ask myself questions about certain elements that were included. In order words, by branching out with other stories, new questions about the universe are raised that demand answers before you are allowed to progress and construct a new narrative. This problem was even more apparent with the inclusion of visuals because if you are drawing something for the first time, you then have to establish what it looks like and if it even fits within the story world. I certainly found this to be problematic within the creation of the graphic novel more than other assets I was creating, but I think it has made me think a lot deeper about writing and the creation of story worlds as a whole.