13. Screenwriting for Virtual Reality: Future Directions

This concluding chapter reflects upon the critical themes emerging from the scholarship featured in this collection Screenwriting for Virtual Reality: Story, Space and Experience (Dooley and Munt 2024) and considers ongoing issues for both practitioners and scholars working in the field of virtual reality (VR) storytelling practice. The authors isolate four key themes for others to consider and build upon. Firstly, they note that the body is central to writing for VR. User immersion and presence ‘within’ a story world calls for a fundamental rethinking of character and plot elements so as to account for user embodiment and agency. Secondly, they observe that practices for writing VR narratives are multifarious and dynamic and, thirdly, that screenwriting for VR requires an expanded skillset. Lastly, they suggest that haptic technologies for VR will continue to play a role in the future of VR storytelling. This research lays the ground for others to consider how the scripting and development practices of contemporary embodied audio-visual experiences might pave the way towards a new understanding of relationships between text, author and audience, which can be applied to digital media cultures more broadly.