Throughout the past semester, brightly colored posters calling for writers, illustrators, graphic designers and “any other interested parties or persons” have graced bulletin boards across campus on behalf of “The Storytold Project”, a student initiative born out of The Old Stone Mill. While many may be familiar with the posters, the details of Storytold itself are perhaps less known. The premise is simple — students submit an idea, however vague or detailed, and the Storytold artists deliver a customized story in one of a variety of mediums in regular installments.
The imaginative and ambitious endeavor began with Ben Mansky ’15, who had been exploring alternative methods of storytelling through avenues like the interactive services Inform and Storynexus, radio drama and fictional blogging.
“The idea for personalized storytelling as a service hit me last summer — I wanted a way to get out my creative impulses while doing something productive,” Mansky said in an email. “Writing to a prompt can be fantastic exercise, so I figured, why not get the prompts from other people, and then give them the results? That’s when I first made the Storytold web page.”
The website grew to a service on campus after Mansky applied to be a tenant at the Old Stone Mill, an off campus venue that provides students the space to create almost anything they can imagine. During his time as a tenant, Manksy formed valuable creative and entrepreneurial connections with other artists at the Mill and realized that his idea had artistic support and sizeable interest, prompting him to expand.
“I couldn’t handle every component of the project myself, so I asked around, starting with people I knew and gradually working outwards to posting in Facebook groups and asking professors to notify their classes,” Mansky said. “As people have joined the team, new possibilities have arisen. We don’t just have writers, we also have an amateur calligrapher, a graphic designer — all of these skills people bring to the team allow us to grow in new directions and tell richer, more fully-realized stories.”
So far, three stories are on Storytold’s website, ranging in format from fantasy fiction to journal entries to instant messaging transcripts. Students can request that their stories appear in anywhere between one and twenty installments and Storytold also offers the option for stories to remain confidential and anonymous.
The decision to publish the stories in chapters stemmed from a desire to adapt to the busy schedules of students, catering to an audience that is more likely to read smaller stories at one time. Writing a serial also allows the artists at Storytold more flexibility in composition and experimenting with different media while regularly including cliffhangers that entice readers to come back for more.
With so much reading material available in print and digital formats, it might be easy to question why a service like Storytold needs to exist. Manksy believes that the personalization of his initiative sets it apart.
“Everyone wants something that was made just for them. On top of that, everyone has ideas, some of them creative ideas that might never become more than a fleeting daydream. Students can search online, go to a bookstore or go to a library and find a huge number of books on a huge variety of topics. With Storytold, they can ask for the story they want to read, a story that might not exist on the shelves of bookstores — or at least, a story that they may never find.”
Though there has been a lot of curiosity around the project, a lack of writers and need for more pointed publicity caused a halt in the project in recent months. Mansky plans to restructure and revive Storytold next semester with improvements.
“Because we had a dearth of writers this semester, we put requests on hiatus, but now, as word is getting out, our base of writers has grown two-fold. We’re preparing a publicity campaign for the fall semester of next year.”
Mansky believes that Storytold offers its writers a unique creative fulfillment that may not be available in a classroom setting.
“Practically any writer will tell you that imposing some restrictions on where a story can go can be an extremely helpful exercise. Writers can decide what they’d most like to pursue, and the installment system gives them variety in their prompts. It also means that they don’t have to write the next Great American Novel every week — no Middlebury student has time for that. For our non-writers, it provides an opportunity to hone their skills for an appreciative audience while supporting a project that they find interesting.”
Ultimately, Mansky would like to expand the service beyond the College by accepting requests from anywhere around the country and world. As of now, he has his sights set on making Storytold a student organization by writing a constitution and finding a faculty advisor to give the service more recognition and legitimacy on campus.
Although Storytold is not currently accepting story requests, Mansky is actively searching for interested artists to join the team for next fall by applying at go/storytold or emailing him directly at bmansky@middlebury.edu.
Artwork by Tamir Williams
