You’ve seen less of me here, but my output has dramatically increased on the back end.
I’m writing a book about sales skills for people who don’t want to feel gross about it. (Looking at you, creatives!) I’m writing a book about how to plan more successful trade shows & potentially get 2-5x as much business from a single exhibit.
And I’ve also been exploring the fascinating landscape of entertainment and narrative. I’ve written 32 pages of a kung-fu / sci-fi adventure in spaaaaaaaaace, and I’ve been using a weird process (which we’ll cover shortly).
To get there, I want to look at movies, and in order to do that we have to go back to ancient humans sitting around campfires.
As my buddy Charles says, “Stories were our first information storage and retrieval devices. It’s where we put our values, expectations, and warnings.”
Brilliant insight.
As long as there have been humans, there were stories.
And then there’s the written word where stories are trapped in clay, or in ink on a papyrus.
Then along comes radio. Stories broadcast out into the aether.
And, finally, movies. The moving picture shows!
We could see the adventure with our eyes; not just in our imaginations where radio dramas live.
And movies reign supreme for a hundred years.
But then. . . video games hit the scene.
Not just diversions where you play with input/output; but rich storylines and branching adventures that change depending on what you choose to do.
It’s like a “choose your own adventure” story on steroids.
The result? The video game world is WAY bigger in terms of time & money spent than movies are.
Look it up; it’s wild.
What accounts for that? I don’t think it’s bright flashing lights and movement.
It’s the power of choice and control and the opportunity to make meaningful decisions about what happens next.
But, here’s the rub: if you’re playing a video game, you’re still operating within the realm of possibility defined by the game makers. Sure, it might be massive, but all those paths were created & defined by the team that made the game.
There’s a narrative format that transcends that limit.
Table top role playing games. Yes, like Dungeons & Dragons.
The rule set defines the “physics” of the imaginary world, but the story is a collaborative effort between the person adjudicating the adventure, and the players who make meaningful choices that take the narrative in new & surprising directions that nobody could have imagined on their own.
And that’s why I think they’re so popular, despite the “nerd” stigma they had all through my childhood. Now, they’re cool. Live streamers have millions of viewers. People will watch four hours of other people playing “make believe.”
There’s a lot to learn from this, and that’s the rabbit hole I’ve been going down (again, because I played DnD in college, but not since) for the past couple months.
That kung-fu / sci-fi adventure I’m writing is the result of me rolling dice and then writing about what happens next. Sounds like it should never work, but it has actually been way more effective at getting me out of my own head and freeing me up to be more creative than I am when I’m left to “write something good” on my own.
Is it a crutch? Maybe. Is it a tool that helps get me moving in the right direction? Without a doubt.
So, get ready for more business & creativity advice through the lens of collaborative storytelling and math rocks (dice).