Story Mode & Point-of-View for Transmedia Narratives

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Story Mode

The story mode refers to how the story relates to the audience during its presentation. There are two story modes:

• Representational: In representational mode everything is expressed from the point of view of a character in the story and the author never addresses the audience. The story is presented as if a boundary is present that maintains the separation between the audience and the story.
• Presentational: In presentational mode there is no boundary between the audience and the story. The author acknowledges the audience, either directly by addressing them or indirectly through a general attitude or specific use of language, looks, gestures or other signs that indicate the character aware of the audience's presence.

These two modes can be combined in a frame-story structure to add depth to the narrative. From the perspective of transmedia narrative design, a combination of representational and presentational story modes (with or without a frame-story structure) can be used from medium to medium to add different perspectives to the narrative.

Narrative Point-of-View

The narrative point-of-view determines who the narrator is and what perspective of characters and events of presented to the audience. The narrator may be a character in the story or may be outside the story with the ability to see all that happens. Narrative point-of-view presents some interesting opportunities for designing transmedia narratives.

With the first-person point-of-view the narrator is a participant in the story. The narrator may be the protagonist, someone who closely observes the principle character and is privy to the protagonist’s thoughts and actions, or a minor character who has little to do with the events in the narrative. Several rarely used variations of the first-person point-of-view include:

• First-person plural where the narrator uses “we” to indicate a group that acts as a single unit
• Multiple first-person narrators with each providing a different account of the same event
• First-person stream of consciousness in which the narrator shares fragments of thoughts to reveal a mental state
• First-person omniscient in which the narrator is a character in the story but has knowledge of the thoughts and feelings of all the other characters
• Unreliable first-person narrator whose telling of the story can’t be trusted by the audience

In the second-person point-of-view the narrator refers to the protagonist or another main character using the word “you”. This has the effect of making the audience members feel as if they are characters within the story. Second-person point-of-view narratives are rare.

Comparison of narrative points-of-view

	Singular	Plural
First Person	I did…	We did…
Second Person	You did…	You did…
Third Person	He did... She did... It did...	They did...

The narrator in the third-person point-of-view refers to all of the characters in the story with terms like “he”, “she”, “it”, and “they”. The narrator is outside of the story. This is the most flexible point-of-view.

Each point-of-view has its limitations but they present opportunities when designing transmedia narratives. For example, different media might be used to present the differing accounts of multiple first-person narrators. The intense intimacy of the second-person point-of-view could present a powerful emotional draw for the audience. The third-person point-of-view can be used throughout the narrative or may be combined with the first- and second-person points-of-view to provide an interesting combination of perspectives. Epistolary novels, which typically consist of a series of letters written by different characters, provide a useful template for transmedia narratives in which different narrators switch between perspectives.

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Story Structures for Transmedia Narratives - Part 2

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One of the biggest challenges of transmedia narratives is developing a story structure that fits a linear narrative into a non-linear transmedia framework. Fragmenting a story across multiple platforms won’t work for most members of the audience (Norrington, 2010). When designing the structure of transmedia narratives, it is important to maintain the things that engage audiences in stories – linked strings of cause and effect, characterization and character motivation, and the dense interweaving of micro- and macro-plots (Abbott, 2005, p. 531).  

This is the second of two posts on story structures for transmedia narratives

• Hub-Narrative Structure: The hub-narrative structure is similar to the converging structure in that it has multiple stories with their own protagonists and antagonists. However, the hub-narrative starts with a significant event (e.g. an accident, crime, etc.) that in some way affects all of the protagonists, who are present at the same location at the time of the event. The narrative then flashes back to tell the stories of how each of the characters came to be in the same place at the same time. Like the converging structure, the hub-narrative developed as a transmedia narrative can use separate media to tell the individual stories.
• Fish-Bone Structure: The fish-bone structure provides additional detail by allowing a user to branch from a linear narrative while keeping the user from wandering off by making the extended information visible inside or beside the original narrative. When well done, the fish-bone structure adds context and understanding. However, a poorly done fish-bone structure can result in the narrative losing its flow and the audience becoming lost in trivial information. (Love, 2004).
• Vertical Structure: The vertical structure has a dominant story thread from which a series of narrative “shafts” branch to provide additional detail. This structure differs from the fish-bone structure in that the “shafts” are not organized to align with the linear narrative. In a transmedia narrative the vertical structure can be used with additional content presented using different media in a non-linear manner.
• Frame-Story Structure: In the frame-story structure serves primarily as a vehicle for the telling one or more other stories. For example, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has a narrator telling a story while the protagonist is quoted so as to give the appearance he is telling the story. In The Princess Bride a grandfather reads a romantic fairytale to his reluctant grandson. In the frame-story structure the outer narrative serves as a vehicle for the primary story, which is the inner narrative. For a transmedia narrative, a frame-story structure may be used to pull together one or more stories from within a storyworld that are presented on multiple media.
• Story-Within-a-Story Structure: The story-within-a-story structure is similar to the frame-story structure in that one or more narratives are presented within the action of another narrative. With the story-within-a-story structure, however, the outer narrative is the primary story while the inner narratives may disclose the background of characters or events. In some cases, the inner stories may be independent of the outer narrative and can be read separately or skipped entirely without affecting the meaning of the outer narrative. The story-within-a-story structure can be used in transmedia narratives in which the dominant outer story links to multiple inner stories that are published on different media.
• Epistolary Structure: The epistolary structure is a narrative created as a series of letters, diary entries, or other documents. This structure became popular in the 18th century and was used widely in novels. Mary Shelley’s Frankensteincombines the epistolary and frame-story structures as the story is presented through the letters of a sea captain and explorer who encounters Victor Frankenstein and records the dying man's narrative and confessions. Blog entries, video clips, e-mails, tweets, and other forms of digital communication have been used in epistolary narratives. There are three types of epistolary narratives:
  • Monologic – letters, diary entries, and other documents from a single character
  • Dialogic – documents from two characters, sometimes organized so that there is a back and forth in communication between them
  • Polylogic – documents from three or more characters. Some polylogic epistolary novels use simultaneous but separate correspondences of the characters to create dramatic tension.

This is the second of two posts on story structures for transmedia narratives

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Story Structures for Transmedia Narratives - Part 1

One of the biggest challenges of transmedia narratives is developing a story structure that fits a linear narrative into a non-linear transmedia framework. Fragmenting a story across multiple platforms won’t work for most members of the audience (Norrington, 2010). When designing the structure of transmedia narratives, it is important to maintain the things that engage audiences in stories – linked strings of cause and effect, characterization and character motivation, and the dense interweaving of micro- and macro-plots (Abbott, 2005, p. 531).

This is the first of two posts on story structures for transmedia narratives 

A variety of story structures used in novels, film, and other media may be adapted to provide story structures that can work for transmedia narratives. Among the story structures the transmedia author can choose from include:

• Episodic Structure: An episodic structure is a single story presented as a series of episodes. As a transmedia narrative, a story that uses this structure would have episodes published across multiple media.
• Layered Episodic Structure: A layered episodic structure has a primary story and a number of sub-stories presented as a series of episodes. Characters and settings are shared across the primary and sub-stories. The primary story is presented in the dominant medium, while episodes of the sub-stories may be presented in either secondary media or a combination of the dominant medium and secondary media.
• Parallel Structure: A parallel structure has multiple stories, each with their own protagonists and antagonists, who go through their own stories. A common thread or event shared by the stories maintains the continuity but each story is separate and has a different conclusion (Parallel Storylines, 2008). Transmedia narratives that use a parallel structure can tell individual stories on their separate media. When designing a parallel story structure care must be taken to ensure that all of the stories are equally important and none becomes the dominant narrative.
• Converging Structure: The converging structure has multiple separate stories with their own protagonists and antagonists. Unlike the parallel structure, the stories in the converging structure become increasingly intertwined as the characters converge on a single common event at the conclusion of the story. A transmedia narrative can use separate media to tell the individual stories.

This is the first of two posts on story structures for transmedia narratives

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Starting Transmedia Story Design

At the story level, the transmedia author focuses on individual stories rather than the broader storyworld or transmedia project as a whole. At the beginning of the story development process, it is important to identify the story concept, dramatic question, and controlling idea.

Story Concept

Story emerges from the interrelationships of existents, events, and settings. A transmedia narrative is a type of story. A story is a series of acts that build to a last act climax or story climax that brings about an absolute and irreversible change in the protagonist (McKee, 1997, p. 42).
The story’s concept asks one or more compelling “what if” dramatic questions that the author seeks to answer through the story. The story’s concept contains within it a very brief description of a quest, goal, and conflict (Brooks, 2011, pp. 36-43).

Dramatic Question

The dramatic question is a compelling “what if” question that raises the basic question the story will answer and is directly related to the conflict of the story (Porter, Larson, Harthcock, & Nellis, 2002).

Controlling Idea

A story’s controlling idea can be expressed in a single sentence that describes that describes how and why a character’s life undergoes a change in state over the course of the story (McKee, 1997, p. 115).  The story’s controlling idea emerges from the story’s concept (Brooks, 2011, pp. 117-120). The term “theme” may be used in place of “controlling idea”.

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Ontology: Events

Events are a change in the state of an entity such as a setting, character, or an element of the larger storyworld. The elements and properties of events are:

• Internal: An internal event is a psychological change that occurs in a character, typically as a result of an interaction with another character or because of an external event.
• External: An externalevent is a change that happens outside of a character in the story. External events can be:
  • Initiated – the result of the actions of a character in the story
  • Uninitiated – a change that is outside the control of characters in the story (e.g. a natural disaster or a man-made disaster caused by someone outside the scope of the story)
• Temporal Dimension: Events have a temporal dimension; they have a start and end point and span a period of storyworld time.
• Nested Events: Events can have nested events within them. For example, a specific battle would be an event nested within a war, which is a larger event.

Concept map of elements in a storyworld's events.

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Ontology: Settings

A setting is the backdrop within which a narrative occurs, but it goes far beyond the physical characteristics of a place in which events happen. Settings occur on both the storyworld and individual story levels. Settings at both levels are similar, but are differentiated by scope and the level of detail. Setting consists of:

• Mythos: The mythos is the established conflicts and battles of the world, the characters of that world, its stories and rumors, and its creatures (Klastrup & Tosca, 2004). The mythos should also include the “official” history of the happenings within the storyworld.
• Topos: The topos is the setting of the storyworld or world in a specific period and geography. In addition to the physical setting, the topos deals with the physical laws that exist in the storyworld (e.g. laws that govern whether faster-than-light travel is possible or whether magic exists).
• Ethos: The ethos consists of the social values and laws, implicit and explicit ethics, and codes of behavior within the storyworld. The ethos provides the knowledge needed to “know how to behave in the world” and defines what is acceptable or inappropriate behavior in that world (Klastrup & Tosca, 2004).

 

Concept map of elements of storyworld settings

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Ontology: Characters (Part 4)

Campbell’s structure of the hero’s journey has been adapted and used by many writers. Numerous examples of modified versions of the hero’s journey exist, but most retain the essential steps identified by Campbell. One such modified version is included in 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters, which includes a feminine version (Schmidt, 2001, pp. 199-242) and a masculine version (Schmidt, 2001, pp. 243-277) of the journey (see Figure 28).
When linked to the three acts in a traditionally structured play or screenplay, the feminine journey is (Schmidt, 2001, pp. 199-242):

• Act 1: Containment
  • The Illusion of a Perfect World
  • The Betrayal or Realization
  • The Awakening – Preparing for the Journey
• Act 2: Transformation
  • The Descent – Passing the Gates of Judgment
  • The Eye of the Storm
  • Death – All is Lost
• Act 3: Emergence
  • Support
  • Rebirth – The Moment of Truth
  • Full Circle – Return to the Perfect World

When linked to the three acts in a traditionally structured play or screenplay, the masculine version of the hero’s journey is (Schmidt, 2001, pp. 243-277):

• Act 1: Challenge
  • The Perfect World
  • Friends and Enemies
  • The Call
• Act 2: Obstacles
  • Small Successes
  • Invitations
  • Trials
• Act 3: Transformation
  • Death – A Fork in the Road
  • Awaken or Rebel
  • Victory or Failure

Concept map of the elements that affect character design

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