The art of the story is changing.
Instead of just a linear tale told in words written or spoken, today technology is giving rise to a whole new paradigm.
In this new world, videos, photos, words, and concepts all come together to tell an integrated tale, which can convey more of the essence of the character than in any previous incarnation.
Through the use of social networking, a tool used to express who we are as people, creative individuals can now express who their characters truly are.
We are right on the cusp of a whole new horizon of fiction possibilities.
In a book you have a very, very flat view of the universe.
Things basically have two dimensions; space, which is the virtual environment where the action takes place, and time; which is represented by the turning of the pages as you move towards a conclusion.
In some cases you'll have a glossary or an index that can provide added depth, but in general you are constricted by a linear tale.
Movies are much the same way.
You sit there for two hours or so, and a story is told to you.
Even when they play with time and space within the story, the nature of the beast is that you can only watch one thing at a time, you can only keep track of what's happening in one location at any given point.
When you get into multiples, things become a little deeper.
A series of novels can bounce back and forth within the world, with the actions referring to previous books, or retelling the same story from other points of view.
The same is true of movies which can reference one another and weave tales of perspective and time throughout the continuity of the rest of the series.
In extreme cases, you can even have alternate histories, what if tales, and stories from other dimensions involving the same characters, multiplying the dimensionality of the story in an exponential number of ways.
This is often the case in comic books, mangas, or serials, where so much literature is produced around a cohesive story that the inherent nature of the art form is to explore every detail in greater depth and with a broader sense of imagination.
The next step is to mix and match media in such a way, that a story can become intimately integrated.
While movies do have glossaries, and books, and websites, and forums, and even fan pages, these are all spread out, they aren't part of any coherent whole.
They are ancillary items that are tacked on after the fact, rather than being generated as a single focused effort.
The internet is giving us the tools to make that cohesive effort.
In fact, it's making those tools available to everyone, turning even the least tech savvy amongst us into directors, producers, and writers of their own multimedia productions.
Through social networking technologies, stories are being created spontaneously, and in collaborative efforts, which tell tales of depth beyond the wildest dreams of the ancient two dimensional texts.
While these stories are often awkward, misshapen, and broken, that is because they are being told by real people.
They are true expressions of humanity.
The social network, originally a tool for expressing ourselves, has now become a vehicle for expressing the true nature of characters, and to tell their story in a more full featured manner than ever before.