(image from Hunter Valley Gardens)
I’ve been circling this concept for a while, mostly in the context of co-creating value with fans through a collaborative approach to commercial entertainment. The more I pushed around the word “storytelling,” the less I liked it. With a growing sense of discontent, I realized that the word connotes certain limitations that make it a square peg to creative collaboration’s round hole.
Then I came across a couple of posts that helped me understand why storytelling no longer works the way I need it to.
First, I found these two posts by Francisco Inchauste about user experience and design on smashingmagazine.com:
Second, I read a great post by Ross Pruden, who eloquently summed up my fragmented thoughts about the matter, especially in light of the economics of content creation in a digital age. In short, when confronting piracy in a digital age, it’s helpful to remember that you aren’t selling books, CD’s, or DVD’s. You’re selling the experiences these physical objects convey.
When I mapped the two perspectives from these posts onto the concepts of transmedia storytelling and creative collaboration, I found a picture slowly taking shape.
Going Beyond Telling Stories: Creating Experiences
The word, storytelling, causes me to think of person X telling story Y to person Z. This implies that the story is separate from both the teller and listener, that something is being actively handed from one person and passively received by another. Further, the word storytelling doesn’t lend itself to include what has, under the trans/crossmedia banner, come to be called the process of world building (e.g., creating something larger than the story within which the story exists).
[For more information on transmedia storytelling, be sure to read Henry Jenkins’ blog post from last last year, which covers the 7 Principles of Transmedia Storytelling and includes a video of his Futures of Entertainment presentation from last November]
Every time I sit down and consider how a transmedial collaborative property would be rolled out, it’s clear that there is far more going on than just creating a collection of stories in a shared world. I inevitably include things that extend the original story through online sites, locative events, and other expressions that are closer to a network of meta-content and cross-referencing than what normally is neatly labeled comic, movie, book.
The experiences that audiences encounter outside the boundaries of the stories are what I found to be excluded (by omission) whenever I typed the word, “story.” And these experiences are growing in importance for anyone trying to get their new novel, film, or album discovered.
The experiences create reasons for audiences to engage more deeply with stories – they serve as differentiators to the other stories competing for the same audience’s attention. And they can generate collaborative spaces for artists and audiences to explore how and where the entertainment property can develop.
This approach of considering the experiences that develop around a story has three implications for artists:
- It provides a way for some artists to better navigate the digital waters of content creation
- Marketing can be viewed as part of the narrative process, not a separate activity
- For artists willing to make the leap, they can incorporate audiences into the process of creation
A Muse and Her Money
So, why is the distinction between story and experience important?
I’m proposing that a key to solving the issue of monetizing content in the face of digital piracy and a growing mountain of entertainment competing for a finite amount of attention is to stop thinking about the story as a discrete product that can be neatly carved away from marketing, safely packaged in a tamper-proof container, and controlled from the consumer’s point of acquisition to the point of being discarded.
Muse of Poetry Money Clip
Instead, artists should ask “How do I want consumers to experience my story? What tools and technologies are necessary for me to convey my story in the manner I want?” The answers will help artists do far more than just tell/sell a story.
Call it the intersection between the user experience (creative) and the digital economy (business).
There is No Marketing
Even the worst examples of marketing (poorly executed brand extensions v. narrative extensions) nonetheless contribute to the total experience of the audience, regardless of how much or how little of the entertainment property the audience has consumed.
Ideally, marketing stops being a separate activity that occurs after the product has been completed. Instead, it blends into the background, becoming a natural part of the entire process: creative development, rollout, and ongoing support.
There is no marketing. There is only an extension of the world and its stories through additional experiences.
Co-Creating Value Through Collaboration
I recently posted about co-creating value, and it resonates with me whenever I consider collaborative commercial entertainment efforts. For the right artists (because not everyone is open to this idea) and the appropriate projects (because not all projects can or should be collaborative), viewing the entertainment property as a collection of experiences also sets the stage for allowing a more interactive, participatory involvement by the audience.
Audiences are a source of value, and they can bring immense value to artists. And I don’t just mean dollars.
Introducing elements of spontaneous storytelling, providing calls to action for audiences to come on stage and offer their own performances, and finding ways to legitimize the creation of user-generated content within the canonical and monetary structure of the entertainment property offer immense rewards to artists who support this approach.
Semantic Sleight of Hand
Okay, forget everything I just said about the difference between ‘experiences’ and ‘stories.’ This isn’t some call for a crusade or an attempt to add yet another log onto the eternal fire of semantic squabbling.
I created the distinction only to make my point that there is far more to storytelling than just the story. You can call it transmedia storytelling, expansive narration, cross-platform performance, experiential fables, or uber-media. Or you can not call it anything at all and continue to create in whatever manner best pleases you.
Keep telling stories. Keep selling stories. We all want to be entertained, and there’s nothing wrong with that.