Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Story Design: Storyteller's Handbook for Writers & Dream Merchants
    Story Design: Storyteller's Handbook for Writers & Dream Merchants
    Story Design: Storyteller's Handbook for Writers & Dream Merchants
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Story Design: Storyteller's Handbook for Writers & Dream Merchants

    By Shared Experience Art Machine

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Story Design helps storytellers craft better stories - by design. Many stories fail to deliver because they lack conviction, or have nothing new to say. Rather than focus on narrative, or style, our simple 7-step process ensures substance and significance.

    Developed over three years of writers workshops, our methodology has helped hundreds of participants to write stories that transform AND entertain.

    Our framework was designed primarily for screenwriters, but can be applied to any medium. In fact, anyone involved in the development of fiction will find it a useful resource. Clear, concise, and to the point, this book will provide you with a whole new framework for commercial storytelling that will make you more efficient, more effective, and more prolific.

    This book was written by the mentors at Shared Experience Art Machine (SEAM), a Social Studio uniting Artists & Audience to create meaningful entertainment with a positive social impact.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShared Experience Art Machine
    Release dateMay 1, 2013
    ISBN9780957355842
    Story Design: Storyteller's Handbook for Writers & Dream Merchants
    Author

    Shared Experience Art Machine

    SEAM is a Social Studio, uniting Artists & Audience to create meaningful entertainment with a positive social impact. Our SEAM LABS invites the public to co-create with our community of Artists. Our production company creates transmedia franchises dedicated to Speculative Fiction.

    Related to Story Design

    Related ebooks

    Reference For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How Do I (Quickly) Write a Screenplay?

      Apr 12, 2021

      A majority of budding screenwriters toil away for years on a screenplay and wonder if there is an end in sight. They’re lost in plot and character and have written themselves into a corner. Their first 20 pages are a slog, the second act is vapid, an

      5 min read

    • Article

      Beat Sheet Or Cheat Sheet?

      May 5, 2022

      If you’ve not yet encountered the Save the Cat! books you will, because the original book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (2005) proved so successful it led to a franchise which now includes at least seven volumes, inclu

      8 min read

    • Article

      Facebook Is Testing Ways To Compensate Video Creators So It Can Cut Into YouTube's Dominance

      Mar 19, 2018

      If you're a die-hard fan of a Facebook video creator, the social network may soon give you a way to pay for exclusive content and award you with a digital badge to declare your fandom. Those are some of the new ideas Facebook is introducing in the co

      2 min read

    • Article

      The First Five Pages

      Jan 7, 2021

      The First Five Pages
      5 min read

    • Article

      DIY Mfa

      Mar 26, 2022

      DIY Mfa
      3 min read

    • Article

      The World Of Writing

      Jun 2, 2022

      The World Of Writing
      3 min read

    • Article

      Writing Your Novel Chapters

      Mar 26, 2022

      Writing a good novel calls for an adept handling of numerous fictional elements and techniques. It means enabling your readers to experience the world of your characters, not just to be told about them. To do this, you must be able to get into your c

      9 min read

    • Article

      Take Two

      Jun 15, 2020

      Screenwriting executives look for a lot of “white on the page.” It’s just what you think it means. Less words, more white. Every page of script represents one minute of film. We must write to fit that time frame, meaning no flowery prose and rambling

      4 min read

    • Article

      Unleash the Creativity

      Jun 12, 2019

      Unleash the Creativity
      1 min read

    • Article

      Online Screenwriting Classes with Industry Professionals

      Dec 21, 2020

      The world of the feature film is booming and you are gushing with ideas. TEN WEEKS TO YOUR FEATURE FILM will give you the tools to get the ideas out of your head and into a completed screenplay by introducing you to the methods that professional scre

      1 min read

    • Article

      On Changing Genres

      Feb 15, 2021

      On Changing Genres
      6 min read

    • Article

      Rewrite The Ending

      Nov 20, 2019

      Rewrite The Ending
      4 min read

    • Article

      Getting Creative With Reality

      Oct 1, 2020

      What do H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, Notes on a Small Island by Bill Bryson and Tall Stories and Wee Tales by Billy Connolly have in common? They all belong to the increasingly popular genre of creative non-fiction writing. When creative non-fic

      6 min read

    • Article

      Bookish

      Jun 19, 2021

      Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer: The Artistry, Joy, and Career of Storytelling by J. Michael Straczynski J. Michael Straczynski has written in just about every genre imaginable: Fiction, autobiography, radio, movies, TV shows, comics, and more. I

      2 min read

    • Article

      Subplots Aren’t Secondary

      Jun 19, 2019

      Subplots Aren’t Secondary
      6 min read

    • Article

      Anatomy Of An Antagonist

      Aug 13, 2019

      Anatomy Of An Antagonist
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Story Design

    5/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I should know - I was involved in writing it! Hope you enjoy it, too :)

    Book preview

    Story Design - Shared Experience Art Machine

    Story Design

    Storyteller's Handbook for Writers & Dream Merchants

    by Shared Experience Art Machine

    .

    Smashwords Edition

    Copyright 2012 Shared Experience Art Machine Ltd.

    License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    ISBN 978-0-9573558-0-4

    Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

    Table of Contents

    Part One - Introduction

    Who is this book for?

    Who We Are

    Part Two - Story Design

    Start Writing by Not Writing

    Commercial not Stupid

    Part Three - Storytelling

    What is a Story?

    Storytelling is a Ritual

    The Story is a Debate

    A Commercial Story is a Debate with an Emotionally Satisfying Conclusion

    The Pitch is the Story Design

    Part Four - The Pitch

    Introduction to The Pitch

    Elements of The Pitch

    Step 1: Story Message - Pt 1

    Step 2: Premise

    Step 3: Dramatic Question

    Step 4: Story Message - Pt 2

    Step 5: Genre

    Step 6: Tagline & Title

    Step 7: Logline

    Step 8: Short Synopsis

    Part Five - What Next?

    The Short and Long of It

    An Optimistic Ending

    SEAM Storyselling

    PART ONE

    INTRODUCTION

    Who is this book for?

    This book is for anyone who has a story to sell.

    You might be a novelist, a screenwriter, an editor, a publisher, a creative producer - or, even, a marketer. It doesn't matter. Either way, you want to tell - and sell - your story well.

    It is a book for Dream Merchants.

    All the examples used in this book relate to screenwriting. Our approach and methodology is based on a lifetime of experience from our SEAM mentors - years of story pitching, development and sales. Nevertheless, the methods that we use are applicable to all forms of fictional storytelling. We know this because the authors of this handbook have worked on films, plays, novels, short stories, websites, video games, and transmedia projects - all of which wanted to sell their stories to the public. The objective is the same, even if the medium is not.

    The methods that we employ create better stories by design. After that, it's up to you. Whether or not you deliver a killer app, screenplay, or video game relies upon many factors but we will give you a solid foundation that will put you ahead of most of your competition.

    If you want to discuss, debate, or put into practice anything that you read in this book - then please visit our online community: Shared Experience Art Machine (www.seam.tv). There, you will find a specific group devoted to this book (www.seam.tv/groups/story-design) - and, also, a community of like-minded artists and creative consumers who have come together to create great storytelling franchises of the future.

    Who We Are

    SEAM (Shared Experience Art Machine) is a community of Artists that exchange ideas, techniques, and best practices in order to create new transmedia franchises for the future. Our board of advisors have worked on many feature films - both for major Hollywood studios and for independent distribution. They have been involved in the creation of this book in order to share their knowledge and develop a handbook for storytellers. The methodology outlined in this book is the foundation of all, new project development at SEAM. We hope that it helps storytellers around the world to develop better stories by design.

    For more information on SEAM, please visit www.seam.tv/about

    Storytelling is for us a passion as much as it is a career. We learn a great deal from our development process and we continue to learn more each and every time we work on a new story project. Perhaps storytelling is a form of therapy, because we discover all of our own hopes, fears, failures and dreams in the process. But it's hard work. And it can easily become overwhelming - which is why we have distilled the story creation process down to seven steps, which we outline in this book.

    If you are a writer, then we advocate that you find a good creative producer, or story editor. The reason being that they are adept at seeing the forest for the trees. They know what is required to tell a good story - even if they cannot write one themselves. It is an important partnership. If you are a writer, then you need to ally yourself with someone who believes in your skill but who can give you unabashed and constructive criticism. Someone who knows where to invest your time to make the story better. Someone who is mindful of the marketplace and what makes for both good business and good entertainment. You will find these people on SEAM.

    This book is short and to the point. The more we say, the less you'll probably remember anyway. We believe that we have developed a simple, common-sense approach to storytelling that many writers here at SEAM have found helpful. Hopefully, you will feel the same way. If so, we encourage you to join our

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1