Once upon a time yet to come… The ability to craft and tell stories diffused through world populations, faster than ever. Both the knowledge of how to construct and tell stories and the tools for building your experience at storytelling became cheaper, easier, faster and more convenient. So more people told more stories to more people than ever in history. That trend continued. So Phil made nine predictions... 1. Everyone tells stories well. Storytelling knowledge and skills previously reserved for expensive and exclusive film schools and writer workshops will become standard K-12 curricula. 2. Storytelling quality soars. Literacy will raise expectations. 3. From Art to Engineering. Professional education will advance the art. 4. Stories for every occasion. Other information will become wrapped in storytelling. 5. Machines spin tales. More storytelling will be automated. 6. Wherever you go, there you author stories. More storytelling will start with mobile products. 7. We Author Together. More authoring will be massively collaborative. 8. Storytelling gets things done. Spielers (oral storytellers) and tummlers (people who urge an audience to participate) will become professions outside of the arts. 9. Theater and play at its roots. New storytelling media will evolve to build on old media. Happily Ever After, your protagonist, Phil Wolff narrative engineer http://twitter.com/evanwolf http://facebook.com/philwolff http://linkedin.com/in/philwolff http://quora.com/Phil-Wolff pwolff@dijest.com +15104448234 skype:evanwolf This is part of a longer conversation about the future of storytelling craft on Quora. http://b.qr.ae/1eyoRUh

1. The Future of Storytelling
Once upon a time yet to come…

2. Once upon a time yet to come…
The ability to craft and tell
stories diffused through world
populations, faster than ever.

3. Both the knowledge of how to
construct and tell stories and the
tools for building your experience at
storytelling became
cheaper, easier, faster and more
convenient.

4. So more people told more
stories to more people than ever
in history.

5. That trend continued.

6. So Phil made nine predictions...

7. 1.
Storytelling knowledge and skills
previously reserved for expensive
and exclusive film schools and writer
workshops will become standard K-
12 curricula.
Everyone tells stories well

8. Why can't third-graders take
apart and reconstruct a short
story?

9. Draft your first sitcom in grade
six?

10. Write your first novella for your
year 9 language class?

11. If nothing else, competitive
pressure to write college admission
essays will drive home the
importance of story skills to
students and parents.

12. 2.
Literacy will raise
expectations.
Storytelling quality soars

13. In the US, at least, we each see
hundreds of adverts daily, so we
develop ad blindness, ignoring the
bland and generic. It takes
something special for an ad to
break through.

14. The same will happen as stories
bombard you.

15. We'll expect more from stories
even as we better understand
the art and craft of the
storyteller.

16. The movies of 1920 were magic
and you could easily suspend
disbelief. Now it takes great art to
achieve the same captivation and
immersion.

17. 3.
Professional education will
advance the art.
From Art to Engineering

19. We're now ready to engineer and
manufacture stories, able to
teach creators how to architect
and construct tales to meet
specific goals, specifications, and
constraints.

20. Storytelling will also become
interdisciplinary.
We'll see Storytelling for
[INSERT DISCIPLINE HERE]
become standard for every
university major.

21. 4.
Other information will become
wrapped in storytelling.
Stories for every occasion

22. An annual report becomes a
collection of short stories about
projects and their heroic
employees.

23. Your monthly phone bill recounts
the story of your month, with the
people you talked to, the places
you went, the games you played,
revealing life themes.

24. 5.
More storytelling will be
automated.
Machines spin tales

25. We already have bots that
generate news stories from
sports stats and scores.

26. We are awash in opportunities
to continue this trend.

27. Natural language processing
technologies and deeper
understanding of story structure
patterns hold the promise to
broaden the range of stories
machines can tell without human
assistance.

28. 6.
More storytelling will start with
mobile products.
Wherever you go, there you author stories

29. Smartphones outnumber
computers.

30. So expect more

31. microblogged literature
(one tweet at a time)

32. dictation apps
(speak your story,
the service transcribes it,
you stitch the pieces together
and edit into a whole)

33. mobile storycraft communities
(critique my script)

34. story planning apps
(character generators,
plot frameworks)

35. mobile story markets
(bid for this on the spot
coverage of #OccupyOakland)

36. mobile moviemaking tools
(I love Cinemek Storyboard aka Hitchcock)

37. 7.
More authoring will be
massively collaborative.
We Author Together

39. There may be value in artistic
credit, but we'll also see wiki culture
where a hundred people chip in to
make the best version of a given
element. Community will emerge
around the crafting and the
consumption of these stories.

40. 8.
Spielers (oral storytellers) and
tummlers (people who urge an
audience to participate) will
become professions outside of the
arts.
Storytelling gets things done

41. Scientists will want
a spieler to tell the
story of their
research proposal.

42. Urban developers
will want tummlers to
facilitate town hall
meetings.

43. Right now we hope to find
people gifted in these arts...

44. In the future credentialed
storytellers will have
certifications, licenses and metrics
that attest to their professional
ability to present stories in ways
that achieve goals.

45. 9.
New storytelling media will
evolve to build on old media.
Theater and play at its roots

46. I personally can't wait to be in the
first MMORPG augmented reality
murder mystery and dance
flashmob in the London
underground.
Ender’s Party

47. This won’t be easy

48. My grandmother
Annie grew up with
horses and
carriages; never
adjusted to owning
and driving cars.

49. Whole categories of storytellers
face job loss as their services
become commodities, as they
fail to adjust

50. When everyone tells stories,
when things tell stories,
you must be exceptionally
talented and skilled to prosper
as an author, a spieler, or a
tummler

51. How will you tell this story?
What roles will you play?
What will this future mean for
the people and causes that
matter to you?

52. Happily Ever After,
your protagonist,
Phil Wolff
narrative engineer
http://twitter.com/evanwolf
http://facebook.com/philwolff
http://linkedin.com/in/philwolff
http://quora.com/Phil-Wolff
pwolff@dijest.com +15104448234 skype:evanwolf