‘Some Things I’ve Learned about Transmedia Worldbuilding’ for Meanland

Article commissioned by Meanland (Meanjin & Overland Literary Journals). I wrote it about ‘Some Things I’ve Learned about Transmedia Worldbuilding‘.

“If you’re playing transmedia bingo, ‘worldbuilding’ scores 10 points and one of those little jelly desserts from the kitchen. It is a term used by just about every transmedia evangelist, and me in the early days. Indeed, it seems a rite of passage for transmedia practitioners and commentators alike. There is a reason for this: it is a helpful metaphor for understanding and communicating that a transmedia project involves many stories and media — there is a whole ecology operating.

Of course, ‘worldbuilding’ has been around longer than transmedia, and is employed in many different ways. Some invoke ‘worldbuilding’ to describe the use of multiple media forms, especially ‘immersive’ ones like ‘virtual reality’. Buzzwords ahoy! But what this article focuses on is worldbuilding for writers and designers at the development stage, and especially two types of worldbuilding in transmedia: expandability and believability.”