Characterization for Transmedia

For the first installation of my Writing for Transmedia series, let's look at characterization, shall we? Creating compelling characters is one of the most crucial tasks confronting any narrative, in any medium. In a novel, your toolset for characterization are pretty well understood: you describe with telling details about the character and their interaction with the environment, through dialogue, body language, and so on. With transmedia, the tools you have available are more varied.

Visual Characterization

Imagine a character with face tattoos and a green mohawk, and one with a shirtwaist dress and dainty pearl earrings. They're different, right?

Here's where transmedia starts to be a lot less like a novel and a lot more like a comic book or a screenplay (or even a traditional video game). To characterize for transmedia, you need to develop a visual sense. When you're writing web-based fiction, you don't generally have the liberty of simply describing a character like I just did up there. You have to show us, not tell us, in a literal sense. 

If you plan to include photos or video, you can substitute description with casting, costuming, and setting. All of these elements work to characterize. If your character will be keeping a blog, the design must be one the character would choose as their public face. Same-same with Twitter profile themes and so on. Face Tattoos and Pearl Earrings probably wouldn't want or like the same site designs.

I used to make myself crazy with one more qualifier -- the character would have to know how to put up sites and profiles of that complexity. But I believe it's an emerging convention not to overthink personal websites with production values exceeding the plausible skill of the character in question. (And if it's not, then it should be!) Don't let realism trip you into weakening your story.

Media Choices

Ideally, everything about a character will be internally consistent. Even the media platforms you choose can build character. 

A character who primarily uses LinkedIn is perceived as different from the sort of person who uses Facebook; your LinkedIn user will be considered all business, and it won't be your venue of choice if your story is going to involve intensive personal drama. Gmail and AOL email addresses bring up very different connotations -- the Gmail user will be considered technology-savyy, the AOL user not so much. 

There will be projects where these media choices will be made for structural reasons instead (or because of a partnership agreement, or because only one choice has a pivotal feature you need). So you won't always have the liberty to work them for character. But examine your platform decisions whenever you do have the opportunity. Every little touch helps.

Self-Portrayal

Voice is important in writing dialogue for flat fiction. Voice is about a hundred times more important in social media storytelling; everything you write for a character is, essentially, dialogue. Sometimes literally, as in a video script. Sometimes figuratively. What is a blog post, if not a monologue? Or a Tweet? Or an email?

This has some far-reaching implications for transmedia storytelling. Every piece of content you put out there from a character says something about who they are -- and who they want your audience to think they are. In transmedia, every character is an unreliable narrator. 

But "unreliable" in the sense that they'll be trying to get your audience to think of them in the way that character wants to be seen. (Just like social media in real life, eh?) There can be a gap, here, between content and presentation, and in that gap, character shines through. 

Characters who insist they aren't the kind to hold a grudge, but who take every opportunity to talk smack about people who they've fought with in the past. Characters who talk long and loud about how great their life is, and let slip the barest mention of looming conflict or worry in an offhand way. This sort of mismatch isn't going to be necessary or even advisable for every character or every project, but used well, this can create a wonderful richness of depth.

Traditional Tools

Don't forget that one of the best tools for showing character in flat fiction is still there for you: What the character actually does in your story. All of the great visual detail and telling media choices in the world won't help you if your character doesn't do interesting things. Action speaks to motivation and character like nothing else. Action in a transmedia project, though, can be difficult to convey. I'll talk about why plus a few tricks to cope next time.

Meanwhile: Agree? Disagree? Do you have other thoughts for how to characterize in transmedia? Leave a comment. We're all learning together. ^_^

Comments

[Lloyd Davis]

I'm excited about what you're doing here, thank you for getting started.

When I trained as an actor (too many years ago) one of the most useful characterization exercises we were taught was to go through a text and make 3 lists: what my character says about himself; what my character says about other people; and what other people say about my character. Those lists quickly reveal all sorts of insights and hypotheses about what makes this person tick.

I would add though, what *don't* they say and what *don't* they do - there's probably a whole story to unpack within why X ignores Y that adds an extra layer of intrigue or identification for the audience.

Keep it up! I'm loving learning with you so far :)

[Andrea]

That three-lists bit is a great technique, Lloyd. I'm going to have to start using it myself! Thanks for posting it.

You're absolutely right that omission is also a big thing. So much territory to cover! Ack!

[the slackmistress]

One of the things that you rarely get to do in screenwriting (or even in novelizations, unless it's first person) is to also think about the technical aspect of HOW a character writes.

Do they abbreviate "to" to "2?" Do they use "u" instead of "You?" Do they overuse emoticons? Do they have typos? Are there lots of............?

Dotheytypeeverythingclosetogether

Or far apart?

do they eschew capital letters?

Or Is Everything Capitalized? All of these are choices (and can make it easier when you're portraying multiple characters, too.)

Then there's the idea of timing. If you're using something like Twitter - are they a morning person? Are they posting between classes? It's not that you have to explain...but having an explanation ready in case you need one!

[Andrea]

All great points, Nina. ^_^ This is pretty much a fractal topic, isn't it?

[Scott Walker]

Loving the series already.

Keying off Lloyd's comment above, my take on this is that transmedia storytelling is an opportunity and a challenge.

Yes, you need to consider characterization within each of the distributions channels/platforms the audience will engage with, but you also need to keep in mind the totality of the fragmented characterization.

How will an audience member view a character if they read the character's website and Facebook but not Twitter account? What if they read a short story about the character and the character's blog but don't view the video shorts?

In short, as a transmedia storyteller, you constantly have to ask yourself, "But what if the audience members consumes the various content elements in *this* order versus *that* order? How does that affect their view of the character?"

The flexible narrative sequencing in transmedia storytelling offers some amazing opportunities but also some challenges.

Looking forward to your next installment!

[Andrea]

Thanks, Scott! ^_^

I like the aesthetic ideal that all of the pieces of a project should stand on its own merits, but it's a pretty lofty standard. Very hard to pull off. I'm pretty sure I've never done it, and I can't guarantee I ever will. But that's no excuse not to keep trying, right?

Generally, though, I see that problem more as an exposition-management problem than one of chronology. Audiences are perfectly capable of constructing a timeline, as long as you give them something to go on -- past events, future goals, etc.

But if they didn't watch a video to find out what the embarrassing incident was that is alluded to in a subsequent short story... will they be lost and confused?

Can they keep going without that knowledge? Does it hurt the story, or does it create incentive to go back and check out the pieces they've been skipping?

Writing this stuff isn't anything like straightforward, is it?

[thebruce]

I agree, I think realism (or at least believability) in transmedia character design is key. I think characters in transmedia are themselves trans-media. It's rare that anyone who has an online presence somewhere only has one presence exclusively - more than likely they'll be active somewhere else too, and usually for different purposes, different contexts - glimpses at their character from various perspectives. Whether those are personal, unique sites or simply social media profiles.

I do think the _kind_ of social media used should reflect the character as well. Not everyone likes Facebook; perhaps they choose to use tumblr, or deviantart, or some alternate social service with which they better associate in character. Don't use a medium just a) because it's trendy or popular or b) to be unique. It's should be a route the character would naturally take. Of course, as Scott said, all these character fragments should be connected, tied together in somehow. It may be more realistic, but there's still the narrative that the audience should be able to follow :)

And, I think there's a potential loophole to the above-average web design for a character - they could easily have asked a friend or designer to create the website for them :) nonetheless, it does take a certain character to ever have their own site, let alone design one themselves.

Great article, keep'em coming ;)

[Andrea]

I like that -- believability, more than realism per se. I thought about diving into the 'even real people show different parts of their persona in different contexts' angle, but decided it was too big to work out how to even start addressing it. Whew.

Gotta run, but thanks for chiming in! ^_^

[Daniel Grace]

This isn't directly related, but it was this post that made me think of it.

Say you have a third-party medium that you want to use. You have enough pull to dictate publish date, but don't have enough pull to make them lie about publish date.

Your players should be able to find out about this information on date X, but according to plot, it was published on date W, which is before X. If they find it significantly before X, bad things happen (surprise ruined, etc.).

Do you mark it to be published on W or X?

[Andrea]

Not to be snarky, but... my preferred solution would be to find a way for a publish date of X to work with the plot. Plots are malleable for just such reasons as this. ^_^

If you couldn't because the original author is, say, dead, remember that sometimes a publication will hold content for a later publish date. Just because the author submitted it doesn't mean that it gets published right away.

[Eddy]

This is awesome, Andrea. Thanks for it.

I'm curious, though -- for specifically text-based media like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., how important of a role do misspellings and vernacular have? Is it sufficient to characterize a young character with a sentence like "I'll be there for you," or do we need something like "ill b there 4 u" in order to feel more accurate?

[Andrea]

Thanks, Eddy. ^_^

I was a professional copyeditor for several years, so I'm really not one for introducing intentional *mistakes* into your work -- you're hampering the text's primary function, which is communication. (Maybe if you're trying to convey "typing this in a hurry while a man with a gun is breaking down the door.)

But idiosyncracies can really give flavor to what a character is saying, too... (as Nina said up there, leet-speak, never/excessive capitalizing, never/excessive emoticons, can all provide differentiation and inform character).

But really, it doesn't come down to 'what's right' or 'what's accurate,' except in the context of the work you're doing. Is it more correct to say 'vampire wings' or 'bat wings' or 'leathery wings'? Same-same. Depends on what you're going for.