Nostalgia in Story Creation

There is good storytelling when one can create a cohesive story where it pertains to the simple formula of an introduction, a problem and then a solution. However, in this transmedia digital age, a great story is when a storyteller can truly weave a great story that pertains to the above formula and includes rich characters that mean something to the readers. There needs to be a sense of empathy and belonging that is created ones a reader truly becomes a fan of the story. Such a story with rich and vivid characters will result in the story to permeate between multiple media to create something that is truly magical and will give the characters and the story a life of their own. In a wonderful sense that ones the storyteller had stopped telling his story, the story does not end and the characters do not fade into oblivion…they live on. In a sense, truly great stories transcend time and become an ode to the past.

I am not going to talk about stories of ages past but of stories that were told in our generation. The stories that were showcased via mainstream media which truly due to the vision and passion of the storyteller and the way the story and characters were portrayed in the media itself had given it a life of its own such as that it resonates through the memories of all the fans the story had touched. In a sense, these stories show human endeavour at its best as a work of the main storyteller is told aided by a bevvy of supporting team behind the media that it had been portrayed with.

Have a look at these two videos and if you are a fan of either one of the characters in the video tell me, what do you feel?

When I first saw the Dissdea compilation which is a new story which intertwines the lives of countless Final fantasy heroes and villains that had been created by various storytellers and media development teams specific to each story arc culminating in this one story that brought all of them together. Can you imagine how many years it would have taken to create all these characters and storylines for this particular video to be even created in the first place? In addition to that, think about how good must have the stories been made for the viewers to actually feel something when they watched the video. If it was just another snazzy new video game with these characters, people would have dismissed the game for just cool graphics and gameplay but this game…is something else. It’s to show that all these characters and storylines had actually gotten a life of their own that people can instantly recognize or try to imagine them all together. There are entire compendiums of data written about these characters as if they were real people. And that is due to great storytelling.

As I watched the video I started tearing up. Funny thing is I have never been a good gamer but I am a reader. Though the medium was unsuitable for me I had managed to glean information about the characters’ stories and who they are via accounts by the gamers themselves. Thus I came to the realization that one person’s vision and many people’s hard work had managed to bring this into reality successfully.

When you watched this video did you feel that you are experiencing the great works of so many people come before you? Do you feel the countless days that they had worked on making the storylines, the character designs and their passion to bring their creations to reality?

But one other factor makes this video a truly great video. It is the seamless combination and bringing together of previously created worlds together in one new storyline. When these realms become intertwined something magical happens. This could be further explained by the second video you watched.

The second video is about a story called Kingdom Hearts. It is a collaboration created by the brilliant minds at Square-Enix and Disney. They created this whole new story with characters and worlds created by respective storytellers in both the companies. Both had their distinct stories and worlds created by various parties but ones you bring them all together and create something new you bring together fans of both worlds and celebrate the great works created in the past to culminate in this new work.

These kinds of convergences might happen due to questionable motives. It could be due to the relative success of each storyline, bringing them together in a new story could help push sales to more consumers. You never know.

However, it all depends on the delivery. A great story could be diminished by the act of converging these stories together or it could further strengthen the stories and their characters.

This is regulated in a way with which to comply with the demands of the fans and largely swayed by their reviews. Ardent fans of content such as the above are the ones who will be the most difficult to please ones you create a new story with converged worlds. If the new story is not up to par and even a monstrosity that never should have been created in the first place, in the end, it will be forgotten in the deep recesses of time never to be talked about again – hopefully.

The main idea behind this is that if you had created a strong story and characters – something so powerful that they start living a life of their own in the minds of the story’s fans, someday it will become larger than its own world and jump into other worlds to collaborate and create new stories for more generations to come.

It does not necessarily have to be a convergence of entirely different worlds as well. For this content nostalgia to work, examples such as Doctor who and Power rangers franchises have shown that if a story is old and continuously running into the future there will be chances to make collaborations with past content to create a truly wholesome story. It’s all about realizing a story does not need to be linear. The past, present and the future of the main story could be explored further by intertwining with each other with different richly made characters in each timeline.

This is why Doctor who has become a great phenomenon of this age. It had been running for so long that it bridges its old viewers with newer viewers who had a different Doctor in their own time, however in order to get a grasp of the full story the present needs to think about the past selves of the doctor and what will happen in the future.

But in order to grasp such storylines and create even more interesting peak points storylines where old characters star in the current characters storylines can be mixed together.

Power Rangers had done this countless times and it had always made their stories seem like something which is part of an even bigger continuum. Though to be frank it is not done as relatively sophisticated way as the above examples, it still gets my vote for creating a story which has a long life and keeps creating new worlds, new characters and new storylines.

In this sense, we all feel nostalgic when we watch these new creations come to life. We feel a part of something bigger when we experience these stories and we are glad to be part of the whole experience. And I hope that magic such as this will keep happening as more content will be created that spans into lives of their own and be catalysts for new creations as well.

Some examples that are relevant to this theme for your information are:

Disney Infinity