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Editor's Note: The  accompanies the . The interactive episode is set during the attack on High Wood – part of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The writer of the interactive episode, Marco Crivellari, explains the process of writing an episode in which the viewer is put in the position of a young corporal and has to make critical decisions to keep his men alive.

2 April 2014

Dear Viewer,

Would you mind doing some of my work for me? I’ve been asked to write the online accompaniment to a series on  about the , called . We’ve decided to make a full-on drama about a section of soldiers fighting for control of , on the Somme. The drama will be based on detailed research on the real events in High Wood, and it will be told through a fictional group of characters facing some of the very same kinds of agonising, life-or-death decisions the real soldiers had to face back in 1916.

Here’s the thing – at all the major turning points of the story, at each tactical, ethical and emotional decision the young commander of the section faces – the points at which you’d expect me to write a surprising, deeply satisfying, expertly honed scene – we’ve decided we’ll just leave what happens up to you instead.

There are a whole load of linear dramas out there about the First World War – this one will do something completely different. It will put you in the role not of a 21st-century observer of a distant, half-forgotten, mythologised war, but of a participant. As if you had been asked to walk into High Wood yourself.

How does that sound?

Sincerely,

Marco

Dear Viewer,

Just getting back to you about that online drama I’m writing. It turns out, after talking to my producer, Dan Tucker, I’m not supposed to just leave the turning points of the film to you. Instead, I’m supposed to write three equally satisfying, expertly honed, emotionally rich outcomes for each decision you make. We give you the choices, you choose the route.

Oh sweet Lord….

Dan has done loads of interactive stuff, he’s a real expert, whereas I’m only here because they liked my short films and my drama documentary scripts. I’ve built up a real sense of intimacy with the First World War experience after nearly a year on the TV series as Associate Producer, but I’ve never done anything interactive before... I’d better do what Dan says. But how could the characters I’ve created do three different things at the turning points of the film, and still remain the same character? Characters reveal themselves by the decisions they take, don’t they?

Off now to the British Library to look out the window until Dan calls to ask if I’ve finished.

Yours in hope,

Marco

Dear Viewer,

I’ve done it! You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve got a first draft! That stuff about characters revealing themselves by the decisions they take? I’ve explained it to myself by thinking how all our lives run through a constant series of crossroads, and how at each one we may be swayed by subtle differences of mood, an inflection of voice from our companion, a glance that sets our destiny on a new route. Every alternative narrative route must make complete sense for the characters I’ve created, and lead to equally compelling new scenes.

The thing is, I now feel equally attached to every one of the narrative routes I’ve created. I want you to go back and repeat your journey through the story, taking different decisions at each stage, discovering all the various elements of the story that wait for you in each different branch of the narrative….Will you do that for me? It’s asking a lot, and of course, the main thing that will send you back to the beginning of the journey, eager to retrace your steps, will be the strength of the narrative, the characters, and the emotions that play out on screen – just like in a normal, linear drama.

That, and the quality of the decision-making you are being asked to make, the amount of purchase you feel you have on each turning point. Time to drill down into those decisions…

Yours fraternally,

Marco

Dear Viewer

Sorry it’s taken me a while to write, I’ve got two Dans on my back now – producer Dan and Executive Producer Dan Gluckman….!

Together we’ve been working back through all those decision points. Every one has to give you, the viewer, a feeling of genuine agency, that you are taking important decisions that affect the fate of the characters on screen. But at the same time, we can’t afford for the narrative to splinter off into thousands of different scenarios – we have to guide the story back towards a central spine.

How can we crack that nut?

Each decision has to have its own reverberation - by which I mean, it has consequences both in the live action and in the feedback screens that are being created for the end of each act. The feedback screens will put your decisions in historical context, as well as giving you more tactical information and telling you more about the emotional state of the men you are leading. Of greatest interest to me will be some short animated films I’ll be writing – flashbacks that give essential bits of background about the characters in the live action.

And in the live action, every decision will have ripple effects – whether it’s just an image (the body of a dead comrade or enemy), a glance, or a word. These ripple effects will gather force, until finally in the third act the consequences of all your decisions will play out in radically different scenarios, each one a powerful, memorable climax to your own personal journey.

Well, that’s the idea, anyway. Back to draft six…..!

Thinking of you,

Marco

Dear Viewer

We’re ready to shoot!

Can’t tell you how excited I am, and how lucky I feel to be involved in this new kind of story-telling – a new area of film-making where the grammar is not yet defined. In this new interactive world we can – we have to – think laterally and creatively in everything we do. What better position to be in as a writer? What new possibilities will we be able to offer you, the viewer? If the whole future of film-making is not interactive, nevertheless I am absolutely sure that interactivity will be a huge part of the future – and being part of it at this still embryonic stage is amazing.

The actors have the script down pat – just give them a scene number (17a? 17b? 17c?) and instantly they remember the divergent scenarios of each decision point, how the emotions of their characters are subtly different in each situation. I have total faith in them, and in our two brilliant directors (the whole project seems to be full of duplication - multiple scenes, two Dans, two directors… is there another writer wandering around somewhere bashing out an entirely different script? If so, would he like to have a coffee with me?)

As I head off to the set, I’m thinking of you. Will you find it strange that in our online drama you can guide the fate of the characters on screen - will it disrupt your suspension of disbelief, or will it make you feel all the more deeply bonded with them? I don’t know for sure, but I know that, if we get this right, this will feel less like a story you consume, and more like something you experience, something that has happened to you.

I hope you will feel deeply moved by our story of two brothers fighting side by side, that you will walk beside them, willing them with every decision you take to make it out unharmed from the hell of High Wood. Please go take the journey here –

I’ll see you on the other side, and we can compare notes on the war we thankfully never had to fight, and hopefully feel just that little closer to the boys who really did walk into a hail of bullets for us back in 1916.

Yours, as always,

Marco