Art of Immersive Storytelling

Art of Immersive Storytelling

Any work that is done with passion sometimes, mostly reflects through the feedback received or sales generated. Being a creative person, I view life from a different angle and think below layers, beyond horizons, and in unusual dimensions.

Last week my teenage daughter came to me and excitedly said, "Today is the last episode of my favorite Japanese anime?'Attack on Titan'.

She went down to the store and got loads of popcorn, made herself a good cold drink, and settled cozily in her room to watch the anime. She had so far watched more than 100 episodes of this anime and thus imagine the suspense, inquisitiveness,?and excitement that she had for the final episode. It was half an hour she was watching the anime and the time was 7:30 pm. I had just started meditating when she came and collapsed on my lap crying bitterly.

My daughter is not someone who would cry easily, or over trivial things, and therefore I opened my eyes and left my meditation halfway wondering what went wrong with her.

She was derelict and crying inconsolably, and when I asked her, "What is it that makes you cry? You were watching anime. Have you completed watching it?"

She who could hardly speak a word and just blurted, "Hange died."

And I was like, "Why do you have to cry if Hange died?"

She said, "Hange is my favorite character in the anime, and does not deserve to die. He is the lead character; how can he die? He has sacrificed himself for the entire community, and the human race.

She was not even giving him a past tense, as she was unable to accept his

death.

First, I took it lightly. I tried to ease her, but she kept on crying. I had forgotten my meditation and was making her compose. It was a good 30 minutes before I tried to console her. But still, she cried.

Finally, I made a video call to my husband and gave him the news. He was clueless and asked who this Hange character was.

Though my husband and I were satirical about the whole episode, she went on crying. Finally, my husband made her laugh by cracking some jokes, and she was composed listening to her dad.

Then, she sent me loads of Hange pictures and asked me to see what her favorite character is like. While she gave such a display of expression over his death, I was not at all able to relate to the character.

I think it's about investing your time and interest in someone that would build a certain level of indulgence. I was not invested in this character, and hence his death did not matter to me.

My daughter often tells me about character building in storytelling and how one should get into the intricacies of creating a character. Mood, aura, aesthetics, dress sense, features, habits, good and bad virtues, physical attributes, references, differences, and many more parameters make a character unique.

She keeps on reading stuff about it and telling me. But this time, I was seeing her being submitted to one such character. She was fascinated and bowled over by how the character had developed, over the episodes in the anime. She has watched plenty of Japanese anime, and apparently, this one is her favorite character.

The reason I write this is not to share a personal family story, but how I see this entire episode as a writer.

My daughter was able to relate to the character so much she felt about it like her friend, her acquaintance, or someone who's living a life like ours but in a parallel world. She always said, this anime always leaves the audience in a cliffhanger position, biting nails wondering what would happen next.

I have only watched one episode of this anime on her insistence, but she was invested.

I feel the art of storytelling, character building, and tempo of any movie or anime could grip its audience or make it shun halfway.

Art, in any form that moves people, is commendable.

Reaching out to your audience, knowing what they want, or creating something that they would be so attached, and addicted to that they look forward to every new episode of the series, is engagement. It is immersive storytelling.

It is good writing, and character creation that makes characters come to life so much that we start relating to them, so much that we adapt to them, and bring their lessons into our real life.

Ritu Jain

Owner- Founder at Redefine Interiors

1 年

This is so so relatable! My inconsolable younger daughter and the end of Tony Stark. I still tease her about her crying in the theater esp now that his come back is due. Love the way you have given a reason foe the behavior. I wish thoroughly that they can invest as much in fellow human and are aptly responded to.

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Reshmi Jadwani

Polyglot Trainer - Business English | Hindi | French | Italian | Spanish | German | Korean | Polish | Communication Coach | IB & IGCSE Specialist | Teacherpreneur @FLEC | Translation & Transcription

1 年

Beautifully crafted! Yes, good storytelling has that effect on the audience and people start associating ideas, services or products with the story behind the brand rather than the brand itself. My teenage students often tell me that they may fail to remember the names of their favorite series down the line, but nothing will replace the empathy and emotion in their mind for their favorite characters. I also had read an interesting piece in a Psychology journal wherein a researcher mentioned that "human brains aren’t really built to distinguish between whether a relationship is real or fictional" - if that's a case, there are so many stories which can be told better and find a way to create an impact on our mind. Thanks for writing this - it was such an enriching morning read!

Even my son watches Anime series

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