Transmedia Storytelling as Narrative Practice

Chapter 30 defines transmedia storytelling as a hybrid of adaptation and transfictionality. Like the former, it involves several media; like the latter, it builds a storyworld through multiple narratives. Two types of transmedia storytelling are distinguished: top-down, the deliberate spreading of narrative content across multiple media; and bottom-up, the use of many media to develop a narrative originally conceived as mono-medial. If transmedia is to be a truly new mode of narration, it should proceed top-down, but actual examples are rare. The essay considers what kinds of phenomena can be regarded as transmedia storytelling; what are the relations between transmedia and interactivity; whether transmedia promote collective world creation; and whether the dispersion of content across multiple media is favorable or detrimental to the two basic elements of narrative: plot and storyworld.