culture hacker

Writing in another dimension.

While studios hustle to revive the classic-cinema past with the release of 3D spectacles for modern day audiences, screenwriters are busy working on their own amplification of dimension.

It’s called character dimension.

Pick up any writing book and you’ll read about the importance of 3D characters. A 3D character isn’t merely someone with realistic professional, personal, and private aspects to their life, but someone who reacts to conflict with these aspects of their life in mind. In other words, they jump off the page with realism.

As if 3D isn’t hard enough, the rise of cross-media storytelling has created the opportunity for curious screenwriters to create a fourth dimension … a dimension of sound; a dimension of sight; a dimension of mind. And like the Twilight Zone, you unlock this door with the key of your imagination.

 Exploring the Fourth Dimension

Of the many things the Internet has innovated, the most apparent might be the way we communicate. Whether via blog, update, photo, comment, or bookmark, we’re all communicating online; and it allows people to glance back in time to a degree.

Welcome to the fourth dimension; It’s called time.

It’s something you do when you scroll down the wall at facebook or comment section at myspace. It’s something you do when you read blog posts. It’s something you do when you browse through news. In a way, we’ve all become time travelers – and that’s exactly why the writer should consider the fourth dimension when creating their characters.

Though it doesn’t seem like a big deal when scrolling through your friends’ comments, how would you feel if you stumbled upon a character posting blog posts, updates, and other active contributions to the web months prior to the story in focus … the main attraction? I’m not talking about creating a mere myspace page, I’m talking about going further by actually creating a relevant past, or backstory, and future that the audience can experience through various mediums, including traditional games, alternate reality games, graphic novels, and more.

So how do we do this, and why does it matter to screenwriters?

3×3x3

Consider the trilogy approach. It’s just an idea, but it’s one that might just work! When creating the story and its characters, consider developing your work not merely on a three-act structural design, but on a nine-act paradigm rather. This might be called 3×3x3 or the trilogy structure, but it’s basically an expansion of what you already know: the three act structure, or beginning, middle, and end if you’d like. It’s been working well with audiences for a bazillion years!

The reason 3×3x3 is necessary when amplifying your character’s dimension is because it not only adds detail to the past and future of the character and world of story, where a traditional backstory might suffice, it also provides a fully developed backstory and future story that will be directly related and linked to the story in focus (the middle of the three acts). By developing a three-act past for your character, including anything from their journey through the space academy, their near-death experience due to an addiction, or what ever might have shaped them into the character we experience in the story in focus, you’ll create an extensive world of story and character dimension your audience will be able to discover when searching for more about the story in focus … the main attraction – assuming you write a compelling story and character your audience is tempted to learn more about.

Remember, 3×3x3 doesn’t mean you need three screenplays – that’d be a trilogy in traditional form. The 3×3x3 structure is merely a frame for which to create the future and past relevant to your character and story in focus. So how do you write the past and the future? Any way you’d like, but the most efficient might be in treatment form. After all, why write in screenplay format if you don’t need to?

Allude to these two treatments throughout your screenplay, and you’ll have a nice set-up for a cross-media project using the 3×3x3 approach. Though it sounds similar to a traditional spin-off or sequel, there’s a major difference: control.

This is kind of the main point.

As the writer, you want the most control possible, right? This method might be the writer’s ticket to the creative control over the past and future of their story, because by creating and knowing the past and future ahead of time, you can allude to them throughout the screenplay, which, like subtly directing the mind’s eye of your reader to see your original vision on the page using specific description, you’ll be able to direct the same reader to see not only the potential of the past and future, but the medium they should play out on – but that is definitely a whole different article.

It’s no longer just about minor details that shape a character; it’s about time. And time can only be revealed through character past and future. Whether you’re writing a screenplay to produce or writing one on spec, it’s important to consider cross-media storytelling when creating your work.

Not only are audiences changing every day, but the studios and production companies recognize it as well. In short, the form of storytelling is evolving, which means producers, agents, and everyone that comes in contact with your story, in addition to your audience, will be expecting it just as they expect interesting characters, dialogue they’ve never heard before, and situations that they’d either hate or love to experience. Besides, you never know; a producer might already have their readers reviewing screenplay submissions with an eye toward cross-media potential. After all, though cross-media storytelling might be considered a fresh new way to connect with audiences from a storytelling point of view, to a producer, it’s most likely viewed as one of the strongest marketing techniques. This is why it’s important to screenwriters.

Whether you’re writing on spec, writing a feature to produce, or writing purely for the fun of it, you need to know what a cross-media project is, how it works, and most importantly, how to write one. While using the fourth dimension to create a more realistic character helps give depth to your project, it’s by no means the whole iceberg … merely the dripping polar bear that stands at the foot of the highest peak of the iceberg … the character.

Christopher Rice is a professional story analyst, copywriter, and aspiring director 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, The Harry Winer Company, ScriptShark, and more.

He also writes helpful articles about screenwriting at www.scriptxray.com.