Gain new insights and fresh perspectives on the art of storytelling in all its many forms.

99 Ways to Tell a Story is a series of engrossing one-page comics that tell the same story ninety-nine different ways. Inspired by Raymond Queneau’s 1947 Exercises in Style, a mainstay of creative writing courses, Madden’s project demonstrates the expansive range of possibilities available to all storytellers. Readers are taken on an enlightening tour—sometimes amusing, always surprising—through the world of the story.

Writers and artists in every media will find Madden’s collection especially useful, even revelatory. Here is a chance to see the full scope of opportunities available to the storyteller, each applied to a single scenario: varying points of view, visual and verbal parodies, formal reimaginings, and radical shuffling of the basic components of the story. Madden’s amazing series of approaches will inspire storytellers to think through and around obstacles that might otherwise prevent them from getting good ideas onto the page. 99 Ways to Tell a Story provides a model that will spark productive conversations among all types of creative people: novelists, screenwriters, graphic designers, and cartoonists.

Inspired by a French work published in 1960, the New York Times Book Review called Queneau’s original Exercises In Style (which still sells today)“…truly original…makes a greater contribution to the philosophy of language than many a portentous, academic tone.”

Madden’s goal is to apply the same principle to storytelling, text and graphic, by creating as many variations as possible on a simple one-page narrative. For writers, artists, and graphic novelists, the effect and practical application of Madden’s work is fascinating and tremendous fun. By illustrating the alternatives to a single scene, Matt Madden opens the door for all storytellers to think their way through and around the obstacles that stand in the way of getting good ideas on to the page.