culture hacker

Storytellers of all trades, including novelists, filmmakers, musicians, game designers, and even bloggers, currently face a greater challenge than telling a compelling story in their medium; it’s called change, and like evolution in general, it’s simply inevitable.

While storytelling will continue to forever thrive as one of the best sources of entertainment reflecting the human condition and emotion, the way audiences are consuming these stories and media is changing. When it comes to storytelling, the audience is the king, so in essence, the way we tell and share stories is changing because our audience is telling us to change it.

The technological advancement most responsible for this change is the Internet. And while the universe of cross-media technology is the newest frontier, I’m interested with the actual storytelling aspects of cross-media. As a professional story analyst and writer in Los Angeles, I’m focused toward the screenwriting process and more importantly, how writers and independent filmmakers can create a cross-media project while writing their screenplay, pilot, graphic novel, manuscript, or blog instead of merely taking advantage of the cross-media distribution opportunities. With the success of Cloverfield, Lost, and The Dark Knight, it’s clear that cross-media storytelling is an invaluable marketing technique; it’s only a matter of time before publishing houses, studios, and producers catch on and demand strong cross-media elements just as they demand strong character work, theme, and audience appeal. Do you know how to include cross-media elements into your screenplay? Does anyone? Cross-media as a whole isn’t that old, so the playing field is wide-open to new ideas, techniques, and innovation. If you’re an aspiring screenwriter, independent filmmaker, or any other creative writer interested in the universe of cross-media, the changing landscape of storytelling, and the importance of cross-media elements in your screenplay, graphic novel, manuscript, blog, or other literary work, subscribe to CultureHacker’s RSS feed right now because we’re about to embark on an exciting new journey full of discovery and explosive new corners in world of story.

Let’s launch the exploration of writing the cross-media project with this basic thesis: The earlier your include cross-media elements the better.

So how do we do this? And why is it important for the writer to spend the extra effort?

The possibilities are endless. As writers, we all approach our projects and their elements differently; cross-media is no exception. Treat the process of cross-media creation the same as you would treat character creation, theme exploration, and the overall storyline. Approach it in your individual way, regardless if it’s brainstorming, working with a partner, outlining, or what ever your process of creation is.

Control Your Story. What’s the worst point during the development process from a screenwriter’s perspective? Getting fired and replaced by another writer of course – it happens on nearly every movie by the way (when ever you see “and” between two writers in the credits, it means one of them was fired – writing partners share an ampersand between their names, but I digress). The point is: it’s our dream as writers to see what we’ve created for the page produced for the screen with as little revision as possible; therefore, by creating the cross-media elements during the writing stage and including them in the script, you’ll have more control over the way your project is distributed, the way audiences discover your project, whether it’s through an ARG, graphic novel, secret websites, product, blogs, and other cross-media elements. This doesn’t mean doing the marketing department’s job for them, but rather, creating attractive opportunity for the new media department – just as you create stunning characters to attract actors and compelling visuals to attract directors.

Remember, this is merely an overview of what we’re about to launch into – the change technology and the audience has demanded from storytellers, the opportunity to innovate screenwriting, the challenges screenwriters now face, how other projects are successfully evolving — very tip of the berg information if you will – so subscribe if you’d like to continue the exploration of writing the cross-media project with us – there are a lot of exciting new developments ahead, and perhaps together, through discussion here at CH, we can shape the standard of writing cross-media narratives.

If you don’t learn how to evolve with your audience, your audience might leave you behind.

What do you see in the near future for cross-media entertainment? How will screenwriting be affected? And how do you personally approach your cross-media projects?

Christopher Rice is a professional story analyst and writer in Los Angeles. His experience includes reading screenplays, manuscripts, TV pilots, treatments, and books for such companies as Gold Circle Films, Josephson Entertainment, Parkway Productions, ScriptShark.com, Penny Marshall, The Harry Winer Company, and more, as well as writing thousands of SEO-driven advertising campaigns and articles.

Christopher currently splits his time writing short stories for ScribblePlay.com, a place to write, exploring screenwriting with helpful articles and tips at ScriptXRay.com, where you can look beyond the surface of screenwriting, as well as writing feature screenplays and directing short films.