The base text will be a short story of mine that uses the frame of a present scene and, in between, explores the character’s backstory to inform the present moment. However, as a form, the short story limits me in how far I can go into the character’s backstory before readers get bored or give up on the piece. As such, the purpose of my transmedia project is to create the world and life of a character beyond what a traditional short story can offer. I will create a website with three media access points to the narrative: a diary entry for the day the current story takes place, an interactive map of West’s hometown with sections of backstory on West’s life (where each memory can be opened from the location it happened), and a Facebook page for West with some of his posts, favorite songs, pictures, etc. Together, these three media will allow the reader access points into the present, the backstory, and the character.
The audience for this project will be young adults and college students, as well as short story readers. To reach this younger audience, I will use a combination of visual, aural, spatial, and linguistic modes. The tools I will need to compose this project are Genially (for the map of West’s backstory) and Wiks (for the main website and the facebook page… since it would be hard to share full access to a real facebook page without allowing others to comment on the page and having to maintain it; this also takes out the issue of spontaneity and Facebook’s attempts to add other content.) Access to my project will primarily be through the website it’s crafted on. However, I will also share it through various social media (a blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat). Thus, my project will be able to be accessed and found from multiple places, but will be platform dependent for full viewing capabilities.