Iterative multimodality: An exploration of approaches to transmedia writing

For creative writers, transmedia storytelling represents the opportunity to craft stories across a diverse narrative ecology often made up of print and digital elements. Increasingly, this requires writers to move beyond linguistic narrative renderings, and embrace the semiotic affordances and limitations of numerous media. While contemporary research highlights the importance of multimodality as a facet of transmedia storytelling, little research has focussed on the ways creative writers might approach such an undertaking. This paper examines several transmedia texts characterised by the role multimodality plays in establishing a narrative that, while dispersed across media, maintains narrative cohesion despite the different modal capacities of the media used. Through considering the factors required in continuing narrative consonance, including character and representation, the paper examines iterative multimodality as a framework for understanding how creative writers leverage narrative modes and interaction within and across media.