Return on investment: Make it mythic, make it memorable!!!

Be The Bite Interactive is a multimedia studio, specializing in horror narrative 🕷️📓My name is Izaak & I mentor industry revolutionizing horror fiction in every medium, resolving narrative issues thoroughly. This blog is for motivation, full of evidence based methods for mastering scary storytelling. If you want to become instantly effective in horror, my 1-1 mentoring is available now, sign up for it here: Be The Bite Interactive's 1-1 Narrative Mentoring – Fill out form 

I want to talk about return on investment, through the narrative building phase of your project. In pre-production, or in the ideation phase is where most people pour their time and effort into perfecting something. Not many professionals think about their time/energy investment into their stories, they just rush to get a final script ready and then just do things on the fly. These are not efficient ways of working, and definitely do not bring your ideas to justice. It's ideas that become bankable, and I want to talk about motivating you to expand on your ideas through the lens of filtering. By filtering your idea through a proven and easy storytelling method, we ensure that the ideas connect to an audience deeply. This isn't about watering ideas down, this is about stabilization. So how do you know if your ideas will get their return on investment? 

Lets say you have an idea for a movie. It's been months, and still no script. But you've done the 'research' and thought about it a bunch. The big missing link is, the audience. They can only take in so much information. That means, all the glitz and glamour and genre box ticking is totally lost on the audience. Their minds are busy, and they show up to be entertained or moved. 

It's proven that the subconscious mind does most things for us day-to-night, and this includes enjoying entertainment. So by appealing the subconscious mind, we bypass the noise and busyness of the conscious thinky mind. 

That means, its more than bankable to use mythical structures in stories. Because myths are meaningful by design, they include tangible and recognizable tropes that resonate deep into the subconscious mind.

If there is nothing recognizable about a story, yes it can still be memorable. But its effortless, and more effective to refer to mythic structures into your horror masterwork. But whats the point of introducing mythical structures into stories, why not anything recognizable?

Because the subconscious mind picks up easily on things its seen before, that means representing your narrative through a mythic lens. Story beats, familiar character archetypes...The story mechanics are actually your gateway into entering into the audiences subconscious mind. And you can go full throttle mythic, using existing monsters and motifs. These are great for supernatural stories, riffing on existing monsters and ideas. The audience picks up on these, and it even creates a major fan culture.

You can riff on mythic principles as little or as much as you like, think of it like a buffet. You don't need everything on your plate to feel full. Just take what you like. But appeal to the the part of the mind that tracks things, notices patterns, recognizes subtleties...and you've got yourself a story that could be told in multiple cultures, in 100s years from now and in multiple-mediums. Talk about return on your investment!

The method that I mentor with is about running ideas through a filter system. This lets ideas breathe, and only uses specific relevant topics to enhance the ideas.

Even toying with mythic things, in a fun way leads to great results. Because the human mind recognizes patterns, even when they aren't even there.

Horror and mythic structures.

Think of horror as in the same imaginative box as fantasy or sci-fi. The major difference is:

Horror tackles taboos, the things that people are often afraid to talk about. This means that subject matter often gets niched down, as not everything is palatable for all audiences. 

But it doesn't mean that horror is always niche, in fact the most popular horror franchises use mythic archetypes and motifs to engage audiences outside of horror. 

Think Stranger Things, Frankenstein etc... These are memorable too because they also apply specific traits in making the 'horror' feel relatable. The biggest way to do that is making it emotional, tying the monsters to trauma and relationships. 

If you want to make horror bankable, filter your idea through a few mythic things and see it for yourself. But horror works best, when the audience doesn't recognize things or their recognizable things get taken away and drives tension to resolve it.

That's why subverting the recognizable, engages the subconscious mind to be fired up and search for patterns and meaning. To do this, you need to introduce a little mythic, subvert it/remove it then build it back in. 

This actually keeps sub-genres alive, and makes for really engaging horror. It 'hooks the audience' without gimmicks or flashiness. Because by subverting mythic tropes, you are actually diving into the bedrock of your narrative mechanics. Not everything will work, but the ones that do will get fans raving for more. 

The Multimedia myth and meaning. 

We live in the era of smartphones, and game consoles, social media and robots. Stories must evolve and are storytellers are required to meet ever-evolving expectations. Its important to research your medium, and find out what audiences love about horror in that medium. I'm always listening to podcasts to keep my ideas fresh, and also work out WHY people love horror in my chose multimedia. This also helps me wise up to bring something new and innovative. 

Innovation, stimulates the market. Try it for yourself, dive into the mechanics of your story and include/subvert a few mythic tropes.

That's all for now, stay spooky. 

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