A New Genre of Storytelling

Reality Quests

A “Reality Quest” is a storytelling genre that mixes real-life adventures and multiple communication forms that are highly accessible to us in the 21st century—a fiction tale, poetry, an "art"-icle (essay about an art of life), films, and images. Below is the list of ingredients to create your own Reality Quest and a breakdown of creating one. The purpose of a Reality Quest is to take a journey within (soul) and outside (the world).

It's a perfect journey to take with a romantic partner to build a closer bond, as a family to help your children grow in curiosity, wisdom, and adventure, as an individual, or with friends to both expand your mind and take an adventure in the world at the same time. An example of a Reality Quest is shown in my book Imagination Unchained: Poetry of Reality. Technology to travel the globe and the tools to express your imagination have all coincided into a perfect moment in time for this new genre of storytelling to become part of society. Happy adventures!

Step 1: Themes & Locations

Decide what thing or things about life you want to explore. Be intentional. For me, it was exploring imagination, the nature of good and evil, the idea that connections are the essence of reality, the idea of love, and fathoming God. You can choose fewer or more themes. The other thing, and this can be done in reverse order, is pick a location or locations that you want to travel to and explore. For creative or financial purposes, you can use a location as a stand-in location like they do in the movies.

Step 2: Planning The Trip

So, you’ve come up with the skeleton of the story themes, some locations, maybe written some poems or a short story to get your ideas growing, and next, you prepare the filming and photography aspect for the visual arts. Granted, you can do this in a different order; take this as a guide, not a rigid structure. The intention with this is to help you manage all the pieces. Think of ways you may want to capture your journey so you can turn it into memories and art.

Step 3: Picking Adventurers

Taking the journey with someone else or even many others is an important part of a Reality Quest because connection is the essence of life. Yet, sometimes it’s nice to find a connection within yourself, so feel free to take a Reality Quest on your own and have no shame about it. Whether as a couple, family, friends, or alone, it's up to you. The goal is still the same—personal growth and adventure with both intentionality and openness.

Step 4: Taking the Quest

Take the journey to capture your adventure moments on photograph and video, which you will use to piece together into the larger story. This will happen around your town, city, nature, and/or the world. You can explore as much as you want within one Reality Quest, or you can spread it across multiple Reality Quests, as this is designed to be a lifestyle of finding more ways to experience life and express it in various art forms.

Step 5: Piecing Together the Art

So, now that you’ve come up with themes, gone to your locations, and gathered footage/pictures, it’s time to start piecing your Reality Quest together. By this time, you could have also written poems, fiction stories, real life stories, and art-icles, or you can wait until now. It’s entirely up to how you’re moved and inspired to create. Also, don’t be surprised if the story has expanded or changed in some ways or many ways along the journey. After all, that’s the hope of a Reality Quest! It’s a journey of growth and expansion of self to hopefully give you more magic in life, and it’s designed to be something you can revisit in your life or even share, if you feel so bold. My book (Imagination Unchained: Poetry of Reality) is an example of how to piece together a Reality Quest's multiple artforms into a cohesive narrative.

Step 6: Editing Your Quest

Edit your Reality Quest, maybe add in some new stuff, and put the finishing touches on your completed work. Don't underestimate the power of editing to help you take your journey deeper or challenge yourself. Also, don't overdue it and cause it to prevent you from putting a finished stamp on your project. After all, there's always another Reality Quest you can take.

Step 7: Enjoy Your Creation

Sit back, relax, and enjoy your Reality Quest! You've recorded your inner growth in various artistic forms to help you express your imagination and you've taken adventures to places that have hopefully given you enjoyment and expanded your perspective in life. You can revisit your artistic work at any time, and it could lead you to a new Reality Quest to take with other people or yourself to help you explore life even more.