A wise man once said, “It takes a special kind of insanity to really just love the complexity of game writing.” And this wise man said it AFTER his house was broken into. That is Shawn in a nutshell. As he says, he learned how to fail upward and finally score his dream job. He used adversity as inspiration and continued to forge his own path with self-awareness and humor.

Need an example? His house was burglarized. How did he deal with it? In the usual way, he immediately started writing a screenplay and produced it as an independent film.

Need more? He missed his chance as a roustabout due to a misunderstanding and used it as inspiration for his interactive story game “Murder on the Midway” in the Tales app. He transformed a full background for an unpublished RPG into the backstory for a prologue in Epic Tavern.

He has a knack for turning setbacks into success. I know. He fits in at Balderdash Academy perfectly.

In this installment, we talk about his story, about nonlinear storytelling, open-ended story design, interactive story writing, game design, filmmaking, stunt work, and the importance of perseverance and drive in the art of storytelling. If you’re an artist, storyteller, performer, or just in a rough patch, this is an interview you want to catch.