What the hell is this website?
Story Issues. Storyissues.com.
What is it about?
Broadly speaking: storytelling.
More specifically: how stories are told, across different media, with all the specific traits each medium has at its disposal. Obviously, writing will be a huge focus, but every craft in every narrative work adds to its story, so we’ll look at other aspects of storytelling as well. Editing and cinematography in films; blocking and set design in theatre; level design and gameplay systems in video games; and so on.
There’ll be reviews, essays, analyses, guides, maybe some original stories, and probably a bunch of random jokey articles that don’t fit the above highfalutin’ brief.
Essentially, this is a long-winded way of saying that I will write what I want to and I will be absolutely, 100% Back On My Bullshit.
Who are you and why should I care about your bullshit?
I’m Andrew Todd. I’m a New Zealand-Canadian creative professional and consultant, and I’ve worked in film, TV, theatre, games, and more. You might have previously read my articles on Birth.Movies.Death, Slashfilm, IGN, Polygon, Gameplanet, or The Spinoff. You might have watched my cautionary tale of a self-funded feature, Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws. Your screenplay might have been assessed by me at the New Zealand Film Commission. And if you live in New Zealand, you might have seen one of the sixty-plus plays I’ve worked on, or one of the hundreds of improv shows I’ve performed in.
As for why you should care: I bring a lot of practical experience to my criticism, and I’m as interested in how stories are told as I am in the stories themselves. Maybe you’ll laugh. Maybe you’ll learn. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll love. I give no guarantees.
What media will Story Issues focus on?
Everything, I think. Movies, TV, video games, and theatre for sure, but branching out (hopefully) into more fringe (or less narratively dissected) forms of storytelling like tabletop games, improv, wrestling, songwriting, politics and news, and more. You might be surprised how infused storytelling is into just about everything we do.
Is this a paid thing?
All content on Story Issues will be free, but paid supporters (via Patreon) will get advance access to that content, plus some extra stuff and interactivity.
Will there be a podcast?
Probably! I know a bunch of storytellers who would be interested in guesting, and who I suspect potential listeners would be interested in hearing from. My goal would be to bring on guests to talk about storytelling in a medium other than the one they work in – a screenwriter discussing games, an interactive narrative designer discussing musicals, a playwright discussing TV, and so on. The crossover is interesting to me.
Will there be video?
Mayyyyyybe. Let’s see how we go.
Will there be merch?
Jesus Christ, I’m just trying to start a blog here. I’m not fuckin’ Patrick H. Willems or something.
What’s with the old articles?
I’ve taken the liberty of migrating some of my favourite articles of mine from my seven years at Birth.Movies.Death, as well as pieces written for the Birth.Movies.Death magazine, appearing online for the very first time here. If anyone wants to make a copyright claim to my work for that now long-dead website, go ahead.
Where can I follow this?
You can subscribe to the newsletter version of the site, follow me or the site on Twitter, like the site on Facebook, or – hey! – contribute. Or, y’know – just bookmark the site and come back here manually, like we did in the olden times.
I’m looking forward to getting back into writing about media, and I hope you’ll follow me as I do that. Let’s go!