The Importance Of Having More Than One Story

Transmedia storytelling is the technique of storytelling through many different platforms and formats using digital technology. It allows storytellers to get their name and personal stories out into the world by using different social media aspects. For example, many storytellers now can brand themselves on Facebook and Twitter. Transmedia storytelling is used to help market oneself in a world that is fast paced and always changing.

Chimamanda Adichie 
author of Purple Hibiscus 
& Half of a Yellow Sun

The article “One World, Many Stories” by Laura Kline-Taylor describes a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design, a non profit organization that spreads ideas through videos and conferences) talk that author Chimamanda Adichie gave. Kline-Taylor describes how Adichie’s roommate in college had a very narrow view of Africa, obtained from the stories she’d been told by the media growing up. Adichie’s life gave her roommate more perspective on Nigerian culture. “All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experiece and to overlook the many other stories that formed me.” (Adichie)

In order to understand what Kline-Taylor was speaking about, I watched the TED talk given by Chimamanda Adichie. She began by explaining she was an early reader and writer, natural to storytelling and penned her own stories at age seven. Because the literature she read was Western, Adichie wrote about Western characters that ate and drank things she’d never experienced herself. As she grew up, she began to read African literature and drew from her own experiences. She published her first novel in 2003, Purple Hibiscus, which told the story of an abusive Nigerian family.

Despite understanding the need for more than one story, as “the single story creates stereotypes” (Adichie), some of her readership did not. A person's views on culture and the world beyond them is entirely dependant on what they are presented with. One reader remarked that it was “such a shame that Nigerian men were so absusive like the father character” in her novel. Adichie responded, saying that she had recently read American Psycho and that “it was such a shame that all young American men were serial killers.” Although with humor in her response, Adichie is right. If we get our education from one source, our understanding is skewed to that information and unless we look further, we will never have a broader sense of the subject. 

Storytelling is one technique to expand a person’s view on a subject. Oral storytelling and transmedia storytelling are two ways to do this. By attending and listening to massmouth’s story slams, I have learned so many different perspectives that I had never even thought about. Transmedia storytelling allows storytellers to expand their audience through different platforms, particularly if they are abroad and cannot travel. Digital technology is a way to get their name and story out there in the world. 

The original article can be found here: One World, Many Stories by Laura Kline-Taylor (February 2012) 


If you would like to learn more about transmedia storytelling, more information can be found here: Storytelling and Transmedia. 

Rachel Simon is the Spring 2012 intern for massmouth, inc. and is a senior at Lesley College majoring in Creative Writing. She has been telling stories in one form or another since she was five.