What’s a Storyworld? The Future of Content Development

Before J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a word of “Lord of the Rings,” he imagined the world of Middle Earth. Tolkien developed races, languages, geography, songs, poems and even recipes that would all appear in the pages of his books. Only after creating a rich history did he write stories that could live in that universe.

Alex Amancio is the co-founder and CEO of a media company called Reflector. He’s just one of several industry players who has embraced the concept of a “storyworld,” a rich universe of interconnected stories across multimedia that’s not unlike the way in which “The Lord of the Rings” was realized. He and many others are telling stories across the many platforms and mediums that were never available to Tolkien.

Amanico is one artist attempting to lead the shift to storyworlds, centralizing a brand’s intellectual property to tell better stories and stay sustainable. But while not everyone can be the next J.R.R. Tolkien, many creators are hoping to make mainstream this special type of storytelling.