Next World Narrative is a global, disability-, queer-, and comedy-led organisation dedicated to liberatory story development. It’s for creatives who want to unleash their unique storytelling gifts and who give a damn!
We’re channelling our skills towards a world where we are all free to design in ways that bring out our best, resonate with our audiences, and contribute to mutual flourishing.
We’re normalising a new status quo where it’s common sense that there are different stories to tell, different ways of making stories, and we all participate in co-making the world. This means we’re walking away from the business-as-usual (BAU) practices that crowd the entrance to screenwriting, performance, and literary work, and reach those who apply story design in other areas. These practices are rife with misinformation about story design, what audiences want, and the way the world works. Business-as-usual development doesn’t allow different stories because it doesn’t want a different world.
Most professional writers know that prescribed story design isn’t how most stories are made, and it is a red herring. Screenwriter Anthony Mullins talks about it in his book Beyond the Hero’s Journey, screenwriter Tony Gilroy talks about it in Neil Landou’s The Screenwriter’s Roadmap, and Hollywood trainer Corey Mandell talks about it in his workshops. Business-as-usual development quashes both writers and their audiences. Educator Felicia Rose Chavez talks about it in her book The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, game designer Anna Anthropy talks about it in her book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman talks about it in his WGA speech. I know, I also tried business-as-usual development, and it perverted my understanding of storytelling. I was a pretzel inside a Möbius band inside compression socks. Then I did what many do: deliberate unlearning and relearning. So, Next World Narrative is about boosting liberatory capabilities at scale, because collectively we’ve figured out how to:
- Use processes that lean into our unusual brain wiring, body sensing, and life experiences.
- Design stories that appeal and engage audiences without Conflict and competition.
- Turn the knobs of the familiar and unfamiliar so it works for our story and audience.
- Choose from a range of design options rather than bend to theirs.
- Choose, mix, and generate structures, not just copy.
- Notice when structures emerge.
- Align our designer, character, and audience interests.
- Write different stories that resonate with various mass audiences.
- Create infrastructure and framings that stoke the demand for these stories.
- Design processes that help us solve problems that are important to us.
- Assess a wide range of designs beyond status quo stencils.
- Write about what we haven’t lived, without using stereotypes.
- Write to bring out the best in ourselves.
- Nurture fellow creatives to bring out their best.
- Write to bring out the best in our audience.
- Write what we want more of in the world.
- Explore what we don’t yet know how to do.
- …
- Design stories that bring on our next world, and the next, and the next.
We’re uplifting these insights, developing systemic craft interventions, and working together to develop more through collective innovation. You get a liberating writing community, and you, and all of you!
This community is for writers, producers, and educators working in film, TV, games, literature, performance, anything, and anyone who wants to come! It doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing this for decades or are curious; you’re welcome. Why? We’ve found that a diverse mix of people, experienced and inexperienced alike, from different roles, artforms, cultures, sectors and lived experiences (including poverty, disability, state violence, and more), is not only eternally interesting but also ensures techniques are relatable, prevents slipping into status quo solutions, is needed to tackle complex problems, and is realistic. By having a diverse bunch of us in the room, we make our individual offerings more overt and alive, and it ensures that everyone participates in the stories of our next world.
[I]f we want worlds that work for more of us, we have to have more of us involved in the visioning process.’
— adrienne maree brown, Octavia’s Brood
‘Wise designers treat design like an investigation and seek out overlooked people rather than avoiding them.’
— Scott Berkun, How Design Makes the World
Commissioned by Christy, illustrated by David Blumenstein.