Enter the Storymaze

The Journey is a Good Time

Here’s what you get in every issue of Into the Storymaze: writing insights or work-in-progress; something creative I’m digging (and you might, too!); a highlight from my comics writing collection; plus a quote that’s got me thinking — both about right now and what’s next.

Twisty Little Passages

As the Joker says in The Dark Knight… “And away we go!” Seems to me I should have hit the interwebs running with something like this a long time ago. I was an, as they say, “early adopter” of digi-stuff, talking up tech in the early days of our information age, often to the bafflement of most. I remember trying to win over Marvel Comics PR to some GEnie (General Electric’s late eighties online message board) comics chatter. “Who would ever want to talk comics in a place like that?” By rights I should have at least had the first clickable gallery of ye olde comics… or even better bought up some dot-com names (business.com sounds like a good one) to resell to the highest bidder. Years after the fact, comic pal and colleague Steve Buccellato and I rendezvoused in L.A. (back when you’d get together with folks, in person like) and he wondered if I felt bad that I’d missed my first mover advantage on all that. I suppose there’s some truth there. But any inaction is on me. And right now it’s on the order of the Chinese proverb: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." Let’s get growing.

First newsletter out of the gate, the biggest challenge here was undoubtedly getting out of my own way. Recrafting the name, reimagining the section titles, overthinking what goes in, what stays out. Am I too conversational? Am I not conversational enough? Will anyone give a shit? Do I care enough? What’s the point of all this when X is going to blow up the newsfeeds in Y minutes, and my little word experiment is going to be a tiny ping on the world’s big bad sonar. And where to start? Stories, comics, business, minutiae? For everytime I’ve tried, earnestly, to work a particular system — I find more things wandering my own creative maze. We’re not quite at the center here… but we’re definitely walking the labyrinth.

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Every story is a maze.

The maze is vivid in twists and turns. Mystery around every corner. And at the center… discovery.

It’s in our cultural mythology. Greek inventors like Daedalus or heroes like Theseus, evading or even conquering the monstrous Minotaur within their own labyrinth. (Thanks, Thomas Bulfinch!)

And the maze represents our personal mythology. A journey inward, solving the intricate puzzle; and then back out again, carrying some new knowledge or gift. (Thanks, Joe Campbell!)

The maze ain’t easy. Neither is great storytelling. But the reward is worth it. There’s a reason humans understand and align with each other through stories.

Storytelling fires up your brain’s sensory cortex. You feel the story. Thanks to a process called neural coupling, you may empathize with the story. And from there, connect it to your own thoughts and experiences.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. Because now there’s a chance for your audience member to become the protagonist of your story. And when the narrative gets personal, a person is more inclined to get and stay involved.

That doesn’t happen by chance. It’s charting a purposeful path in how you inform, involve and entertain when it comes to your product, your service, your brand. To be clear — that path is not to extend a journey for frivolous reasons. It’s to enrich it.

It requires a hook — the tension — of a problem that needs solving. It calls for characters that are relatable, making choices charged with emotion. Choices that extend across a podcast serial. Interactive choices like whatever ends up being the next Netflix Bandersnatch. Conversational choices for an Alexa skill. Choices that go beyond transactions — and seek to build relationships.

No two readers, viewers, players, listeners, customers will take the same path. Every communication — tweet, post, ad, video, game — is a renewed chance to interest and engage. So you need to anticipate and curate surprise and intrigue as your audience experiences what you offer in different ways. Story is your strategy when it comes to scripting that experience.

And an experienced storyteller is your your navigator — your “Maze Master.”

In the Story Maze, the experience is as rich as you choose to make it. Walk the labyrinth. Or fly above it. Heck — become the Minotaur and smash through the walls!

Every story is a maze.

Let’s go exploring.

Treasure Seekers

Lynda Barry won the MacArthur “genius” award — the first comics artist to do so. Reading (living) Making Comics, that’s no surprise. This is, without question, one of the best creative “How To” motivators I’ve ever come across. Equally so, it’s a “Why aren’t you?!?” — a call to action for your creative spirit to take names and kick ass.

That’s not immediately evident from the format of the book itself. Fashioned as a school composition notebook, it may seem amateurish. It has the feel of something you’ve come across by accident, filled with magical freeform musings and instructions. (I was reminded of Snape’s handwritten notes in a Harry Potter schoolbook.)   But the takeaway, drawn (pun?) from Barry’s own lectures and teaching, are the types of easy exercises that make you want to explore this often untapped talent for visual expression that we all have — yet have often “turned off.”

Draw quick, draw with eyes closed, draw with both hands, see where your drawing takes that scribble… There’s an intimate quality to her guiding you through things that you never tried before… or maybe haven’t tried in a very, very long time. As kids, we all drew. But except for a precious few, many of us probably let self-consciousness beat it out of us. Or maybe we needed to make room for “marketable skills.”

This won’t teach you to “make comics” in the traditional sense of pages, panels, word balloons (never bubbles) and such. But turning the pages, and putting your flair pen to paper, will give you a new appreciation for the importance of art… and how wonderful it is to make it yourself.

I’d tell you more. But that would deprive you of finding out the joy for yourself. Beside… I’ve got to go draw some.

The Comics Labyrinth

I don’t know if this particular issue, Daredevil #300, was the high point of my run on the title. If it was, it would have been a prime example of “peaking early.” I was no more than a handful of issues in. But what a greedy, “gimme, gimme, gimme” collection of moments!

Picking up the reins on the comic and character when I did, we knew we’d be coming up on a number with some “meaning” — so much as an issue number feels like it has meaning in serialized comics. (“#1!” “#500”!) “Worthy” of something of note… if we had the creative game to lean into it. Fortunately, my original proposal (anyone interested in seeing *that*?) propositioned just such a moment: blind justice taking down a king.

There was no better collaborator than Lee Weeks to bounce ideas off, and to be charged up anew with every page that would come through as he transformed plot into hyper-reality. Look for a future newsletter to deliver some deets on my part in “choreographing” the showdown in Port Authority’s very scary bus depot…

High point or not, this story finale felt like — still feels — like lightning in a bottle.

Web of Intrigue

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” — Joseph Campbell

Amazing Times

How’d we end up here together? Maybe a detour off the dark web! But I’m hoping it’s because you subscribed to this share-out of projects I’m working on plus things that have me jazzed. I’m D.G. Chichester. Which sounds very pretentious, and tweed jacket and pipe — so feel free to just call me “Dan”, and have a go at the last name as Chai (like the tea) Chester (just like it looks). I earned my word-cred writing comic book titles like Daredevil, Terror Inc., Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, along with all manner of digital widgets and websites in the world wide web of advertising. I keep my storytelling cred by trying new things —  this is one of ‘em, with more on the way. I like weird and sometimes creepy tales, so if things here bend that way — now you know why!

Folks seem to like the comic book adventures I’ve written, so if you haven’t checked one out — please do. Many are now available in fab collected editions.

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For the lonely moments between these emails…

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