Your world is the product, your stories are the sales channel
If you’re an aspiring fiction author it might be a good idea to consider a different perspective when it comes to creating your content. If your dream is for your content to be translated into film and or TV, your target clients are film and TV production companies, and or streaming services. So what are they looking for?
If you spend a bit of time looking at the kinds of content that production companies put out, you start to notice that they are generally interested in franchise material. Prequels, sequels, trilogies and beyond, this is what they get excited about. It should be quite obvious to you why that is, so we won’t go into any of the details here.
How do we take this knowledge and turn it into something fantastic? What you might want to consider is a slight change of perspective when it comes to product and sales, because don’t forget you may be writing stories, but it’s still product and sales.
Ask yourself a question; How much of your time is spent on world-building? Seriously, put the kettle on, grab a biscuit and sit down and have a think about it. If you’re honest about it, you may come back with percentages like 70% all the way up to 90%. There’s a lot of work to do when it comes to world-building. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and you’ve got to keep track of it all.
So, if you’re spending 70–90% of your effort on world-building, you need to get 70–90% back out of it, otherwise you’re over spending for your return on investment.
If you follow the one world, one storyline model, you’re actually limiting your ability to get a return on your investment. Have a look at this diagram.
If you add a gardening mentality into how you design and build your storylines you can limit your chances even more, because you build your world around a single storyline. This leaves no room for growth.
Disclaimer: There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing things this way, but from our perspective you’re not going to maximise your potential.
So if that’s the wrong way, which way makes production companies sweat from excitement? Have a look at this.
This is the multi-storyline or multi-franchise model. This is the model that Disney uses for its Marvel and Star Wars universes. By the way, world is interchangeable with universe in this concept.
What you start to realise is that the product you are selling has changed. The product is not the stories, it’s the world. The stories are the sales channels that bring consumers to the world. Remember, fans don’t fall in love with a storyline, after all there are only 7 different plotlines to pick from. Fans fall in love with your characters and the world that they live in.
How long does it take to create this much content for a multi-franchise world? Well that depends. If it’s just you, it’s going to take a long time. At BackStory we solve this problem by putting together teams of people who work collaboratively to achieve this end.
Does this sound interesting? Want to get involved in some capacity? Fantastic! Check out our website https://www.backstory.ink and sign-up for more information.
