Transmedia Story Maps

Ok - someone commented and emailed me about some thoughts on transmedia and thinking long into the future about making the story accessible.... Some big productions weather time (the Matrix) and some have vanished.... (a nice blog on The Matrix - geektheory.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/the-matrix-10-years-later/ has a vague mention of the author - "mapping" the transmedia experience)

there is so much to think about on this subject - lots of wheeeee fun

I am working on organizing my thoughts - but - one possible way to archive, at least, the story basics and experience, is to use the concept of a wiki and other guidebook sources that have existed for MYST and many ARG games, this is basically to create a guide to the "game" (story) - since games are a major transmedia source, it follows to use an idea from that world (as the first to venture into full transmedia expereiences are thoe who are gamers or more open to that type of story narrative.

Story Maps and guides in general is not a new idea - but jut something that maybe needs to be considered and developed when thinking about preserving the story and helping more people access a transmedia/multi-platform narrative.

So, while the struggle will still be to preserve the entire experience, perhaps by making a Transmedia Story Map for the user who misses the first run of a series, or was not there to take part in the flash mob event, or social media experience as the writers and actors move on and no longer respond to the twitter accounts (I mean ok, think about this writer, you are gung ho to reply to fans as the character - but what about a year from now, three years, 5 years????), or maybe the web series has disappeared or like I am still trying to find the website Hymn of One from the kate modern transmedia story..... perhaps this will be a way to at least on one level archive and preserve the story - what can I say - I read stories created (written) hundreds of years ago - what about today's stories???????

I have started creating some overviews on my web site and calling them More Info Pages - I am changing the name to Transmedia Story Maps - I like that more :P and a few series have that concept (check out The Matrix for instance also - I am till focused mainly on the web series aspect, but these maps could be formatted and expanded to include the whole universe... but now comes the next rub.... these maps are more non-fiction in writing style and setup and some writers might not want to write in that voice....

And there is another sticky point with a transmedia map - there are spoilers galore - so how do you write a map, but not give away the story experience????? There could be two types - one is a very basic follow this and then this and then this....

The other would be more like those books published on series and for games and all and do contain spoilers YETTTTTTTTTTTTTT those spoilers, ironically, are the story and thus they could be a way to archive the story when other things go missing... hmmmmmm

so, may I suggest transmedia authors, as you develop projects, either plan to write this non-fiction piece, or find someone who will and start documenting and archiving now... then in 5 years it'll be YOUR series that still exists and is not regulated to illegal sites, backwaters or maybe totally gone forever....

Oh yeah, I know, there is the whole copyright can of worms - i'm still thinking about that....

Ok - there are more thoughts on this subject - some technically in nature and some more idyllic thought rambling and to use my own word, crankswirling

Oh and I found this diagram - gotta track it down - but I love it regarding transmedia and a good way to begin to think about how to organize, storytell and then preserve story

www.flickr.com/photos/garyhayes/3251571301/in/photostream