Everywhere you go these days you hear the word multiverse thrown around. Multiverse this, multiverse that and trying to get your head around it can be tiring. If you’re an author or aspiring one looking to get your content onto the big screen the idea of a multiverse can seem quite confusing and daunting.
There is a lot of advice out there on how to build your world and craft your storyline, but there’s a big problem…that advice is out of date! Film studios have started thinking in a different way. If you want your content to get picked up it’s time for some contemporary advice.
Problem #1
The first problem you’re going to inadvertenly come up against is your content’s structure. In your mind you’ve probably got two parts to your content, your world’s history and your storyline. If you search around the internet for writing tips you’ll invariably get this as a common suggestion, but beware this is the first pitfall. You should never divide your world’s timeline into two parts with a history and a “present” storyline. Let’s visualise it to see more clearly.
The problem you’re presented with here is that your world has a vast and vivid history spanning an entire globe, but your “present” shrinks that down into a single linear storyline. What invariably happens is that you turn your storyline into a global epic where your hero(es) save the whole world, and that’s bad for business.
Problem #2
If your storyline saves the world there is nowhere for it to go, aka franchise-killer. For a story to continue it usually needs to get bigger and better, that’s what people expect. But what’s bigger than saving the world? Nothing. You can save the world again, but it becomes very same-y, which will eventually turn your readers/viewers off.
Another negative byproduct of saving the world with a storyline is that any other storylines you try to incorporate into your world pale in comparison, and become essentially inconsequential. Storyline A is saving the world, while storyline B is saving a village? You’re probably not going to get much of an ROI from storyline B.
Feel free to have a read of our blog post on the topic of saving the world, with your storyline and why it’s not the best idea anymore.
The Solution
So what are film studios actually looking for? What does a multiverse actually look like? The secret to success with a multiverse is the concept of longevity. If a film studio is going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars on your content they need to know that they can extract as much as possible out of it.
Every moment in your world’s history should be considered the past, present and future for your storylines. Your storylines do not expand your world’s timeline and add to the canon, they merely explain the canon that already exists.
Your storylines need to avoid saving the world, because it limits the impact of other storylines. A villain trying to take over a corner of the world to sow destruction and disaster can still be made to look epic.
What exactly does a multiverse look like? It looks like this:
Takeaway
If you’re an author or aspiring author and you want to get your content up on the big screen you have to design it in the way a film studio now thinks. Multiverses are the future and your content needs to be set up in that way.
If you’re interested in this, why not get in touch with us. At BackStory we build multiverses, that are designed to suit the needs of film studios. We might just be your path to success!
