Holy moly, I had no idea I was going to have such a great time explaining Storyverse construction! I could do this all day long and still never run out of breath. World builders unite! Yes, please sign me up for more workshops!
The joy of working in storyverse modeling is the ability to blow out huge section of lore, lay timelines, and stack constructs to up to the eyeballs—then watch a well-developed character ping around the universe like a pinball activating more stories and off-shoots as they go. The key is in the stackable constructs. Layering hierarchy is a laborious process in the beginning, because a fictional hierarchy of constructs is not always the same as our human/real world hierarchy. However, sometimes the most common constructs of our current world are pulled laterally into the storyverse build… we can’t help it. I do it all the time. Good examples of this are all the isms. If it’s an ism in this world, think twice, maybe even three times, before it becomes a copy & paste construct into your storyverse. For sure, some is good. It helps keep things relatable and “recognizable” to a majority audience, but too many duplicate or pull-through constructs and you’re not in genre fiction anymore. In the end, as I’m explaining, diagraming, and building out POD for others to follow along— we get to drift through layers of constructs, activate gears and levels, toggle timelines and kick the tires. It’s been a blast! Ideally, a well-built storyverse is a playground, a park full of instruments, tools, toys, and playground equipment that has a solid fence (guardrail) and a chaperone. Then, when that area is mapped, and all the exploratory creative equipment has been laid out, it’s a handoff to the next teams who will be developing scripts (streaming and film), graphic novels, games and more. The trans-media side of the development plans cannot happen if we’re not all working with the same core engines, storyverse laws, and guardrails. But once they get all that, and can speak the language comfortably—I get to pop off and have a margarita and let the kids play. Okay, two margaritas. Anywhoo, testing out the workbook pages, and the diagrams on people has been a wonderful experience. It’s not lost on me how lucky I am to be able to build out these worlds for others to play in. As 2023 wraps and 2024 looms, I’m just sitting in my feels that others are able to get in and play in the universes for POD and TLE and that these imaginary realms will not be alone with me any longer. Finally… they are going home to audiences where they belong.
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AuthorAthena lives and writes in the Siuslaw Forest, Oregon. Archives
March 2024
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