I wanted to look at specific types of storytelling platforms to find out more and consider the different ways in which certain mediums are able to capture audiences and communicate to people through their specific properties. This ties in with my research into transmedia storytelling and the different avenues that stories can be told in. The beauty of this kind of mixture is platforms is that each one offers its own list of benefits and unique attributes that separates it from the others.
Novel
As a method of storytelling a novel is almost the most basic form of this. One of the main and most obvious features of a novel that separates it from the majority of storytelling platforms is that it doesn't offer the audience any kind of visual aid in terms of the story and so as the audience you are free to imagine and interpret the words as you see fit - and as well as this each individual audience member or reader will have their own unique interpretation of the story. Another advantage that could be seen as quite an important one in the current era we live is the accessibility of a novel. Firstly, to buy a novel is not an expensive venture and in turn means that anyone is free to access them if they wish to - and even if someone didn't want to pay for a book they could simply go to a library. Furthermore, in terms of accessibility it isn't just the cost but the ease of being able to pick up a book and put it down, or carry it around with you if you want to. With something like a video game or a film, a large set up is required in order to be able to gain access which just isn't the case with a book, or a story in the form of a novel. Finally, something I see as an advantage with novels as a form of storytelling is that there is very little different besides the perhaps the content of a book that was written 50 years ago or just a year ago. In essence they are simply two stories presented in the same way. However, in contrast to this if you take something like a video game made in 2016 and compared it to a video game from 1996 there would be an incredible difference - so there isn't the element of evolution or something being 'outdated' when it comes to novels as a form of communication and story telling.
Graphic Novels
I actually think that graphic novels maintain some very similar attributes as novels when it comes to their accessibility and the ability to pick them up wherever you are to read. The biggest difference between the two and one that negates a lot of the other benefits compared to a novel is that graphic novels are very much a visual method of storytelling. Instead of scenes and imagery being described to you the environment, characters and action is all there for you to see on each page, and so takes away the element of interpretation and leaving things to the audiences imagination in the way that a normal novel would do. Having the audience see explicit visuals though could also be a benefit. Firstly, it means that there isn't a chance that a story could be misinterpreted and also, visuals in themselves appeal to people and the art in a graphic novel is something to be admired as a key part of the story. Similar to a novel however, a graphic novel does feature written dialogue so it is only the action and the overall visuals that are being communicated.
Video Games
Video games contain a huge range of benefits that no other medium of storytelling contains within them. The most obvious one is the element of interaction for the audience. The key difference between this type of storytelling compared to others is that in many ways through film, and novels the audience is a spectator of a story. The reader or watcher is observing and being told a story as an outsider, whereas through the nature of video games the 'audience' is actually part of the story and to an extent controlling the way the story goes. The interpretation of story is also very different because of this. The way a video game's story is understood and told is through the use of visuals and audio, so whereas some platforms may be exclusively visual, video games feature another dimension to the story through the audio. The added benefit of being able to hear sounds and dialogue from the story itself is that it is another way a person can be immersed in a world and understand the story in this way. Video games can also be a whole range of lengths, some might last around 30 minutes before the story is concluded, and some may even take hundreds of hours. This can ultimately mean that a player is heavily invested in the story itself and feel more involved or immersed because of this.
Film
A benefit of film is that it forces a whole story into a set amount of time, usually between 1.5 to 3 hours. This contrasts to having to read a novel or play through a video game, or even watch a television series from start to finish, which would take much longer in comparison. Another benefit of film is that they can be made on a huge range of budgets, from virtually nothing to hundreds of millions - this gives breadth to the medium in terms of the range of work that is released. Following this, films contains a type of language that can be communicated across cultures. Many different cultures enjoy films from cultures other than theirs as if there is a mutual understanding of what makes good film making.
Television
A benefit about television as a storytelling platform that stands out to me right away is the length to which a story can be told at, and the details that an entire series can contain because of this. If you take a series that has around 50 episodes for example that each last an hour each you have 50 hours to feed the audience with information and details about characters and the world they inhabit. This is one benefit that something like film wouldn't be able to do, because a film is generally watched in one sitting and thus limits the running time of a film to around 3 hours maximum barring a few exceptions. Due to the nature of television a story can be planned so that as an episode ends an audience will want to find out what happens next, similar to reading until the end of a chapter of a book or coming to the end of a film and wanting to watch the sequel. Overall, the main benefit of television as a storytelling medium is the length the story can last for in combination with the 'chapter' like appeal of watching a story unfold episodically.
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