This is the final blog in a three-part series on Syllble, a science fiction and fantasy production house and publisher. This blog examines Syllble’s purpose, vision, and future.
Syllble Studios mirrors its founder and CEO in an important way – it continuously looks to improve and evolve.
In fact, as Syllble further cements itself as a premier platform for artists to collaborate in fictional worlds of their own creation, the production house and publisher retains a culture of adaptability and innovation, ensuring that it remains deft and able to shift its strategy and implementation as necessary to further empower its creators and promote its work.
Examining Syllble’s history substantiates these characteristics. When Fabrice Guerrier founded Syllble five years ago, he established it as a literary arts organization for diverse and underrepresented creative writers to collaborate on works of science fiction and fantasy. Mr. Guerrier has retained the core components, but Syllble no longer solely classifies itself as a literary arts organization, nor is it solely geared toward writers gathering in-person in the Washington, D.C., area to produce stories, micro-novels, and novels.
It has evolved into a science fiction and fantasy production house and publisher that encompasses the entire creative spectrum and that has a vision for transmedia storytelling. In addition to being for creative writers, Syllble now is also a platform where visual artists, filmmakers, gamers, and animators gather in collectives in virtual meeting rooms from all corners of the earth to collaborate and create content of which they own the rights and that is based in imaginative worlds of their own design.
It is the first studio dedicated to the production of speculative fiction worlds that also brings together creative voices from around the globe.
“We’ve refined the secret sauce,” Mr. Guerrier said. “We are the next generation of storytelling on the Internet, and we’re aiming to use software and technology to accelerate our process and reach more diverse creators. We’ve done everything possible.”
Everything possible includes Mr. Guerrier himself relocating from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles to drive Syllble even further forward. That monumental decision in 2021 paved the way for new opportunities to arise, such as Mr. Guerrier connecting with president and CEO of Entertainment Media Ventures Sandy Climan.
Mr. Climan has served as a consultant to Syllble since July 2022, bringing with him more than 30 years of experience in media and entertainment. He has held senior management positions at Universal Studios and at the Creative Artists Agency, where he represented talent including Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, and Danny DeVito, as well as many prominent film and television production companies.
He offers his services to Syllble because he believes in it, its innovative approach to the arts, and the drive of Mr. Guerrier.
“Syllble is a creative ‘moonshot,’” Mr. Climan said in an interview with Syllble Studios last year.
“I am a firm believer in creative collaboration, and the science fiction and fantasy worldbuilding activated on the Syllble platform has enormous potential to bridge cultures and unleash hidden creative excellence that might otherwise never have found its voice. Fabrice exemplifies the kind of courage and radical innovation that I hope will bring forward the next generation of excellence in storytelling that inspires a global audience.”
Mr. Guerrier’s sci-fi and fantasy production house and publisher is helping bring forward the next generation of excellence in storytelling by concentrating part of its efforts on the next generation of creators. Earlier this year, Syllble Studios established official partnership at Arizona State University to regularly bring new, high-quality creators into the fold to the creation of The Nova Aera Collective and Nova Aera World. This builds on Syllble’s success of informally recruiting students, including Brynn Yoder, at universities near Washington, D.C., when Mr. Guerrier lived on the east coast. Mr. Yoder, a writer in The Pens Down Collective, joined Syllble in 2019 after hearing Mr. Guerrier speak in one of his classes at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia.
“That’s really important for us – that pipeline of university students,” Mr. Vlad Edouard Syllble writer said. “To be able to produce the work from the writers is the core. All the cool other stuff we’re planning is not possible unless we are empowering the writers and they know that what they write has the chance to be produced and that they don’t need to shop around L.A. for years.”
Included in Syllble’s short-term plans is the eventual launch of a new app, which will bring the collaborative worldbuilding process to more writers and showcase the fictional worlds in which the production house’s collectives create and work. Syllble recently launched a fundraising campaign to support the development of the app and help expand the current prototype.
The app would enhance the creative process for Syllble creators and creates a platform for collaboration and feedback so that writers can get help from their peers and contemporaries to improve their work. It also advertises Syllble to writers and artists from historically disenfranchised and vulnerable communities.
“Syllble is a two-way marketplace – a place to gather creators togethers to create fictional worlds and create content within the worlds,” Mr. Guerrier said.
Syllble currently relies on voluntary contributions and any proceeds from the purchase of books it creates published from its imprint Syllble Books and online distribution services. So, to help support itself in this process, the production house has mapped out a series of plans to generate revenue.
Syllble recently published its first issue of The Syllble Star Magazine, a bi-monthly magazine that features the production house’s best stories, to which in the future readers can subscribe for a small bi-monthly fee.
The production house and publisher envisions in the future, selling subscriptions to the fictional worlds that in Syllble’s different collectives create. Fans will be able to subscribe to their favorite fictional worlds and get access to exclusive content, and they also will be able to participate in polls and surveys to help shape the future of Syllble’s fictional worlds.
The long-term plan is to sell the rights to well-developed fictional worlds to other companies, such as game developers, film studios, and animation studios. This will allow the sci-fi and fantasy production house and publisher to capitalize on its creations, generate revenue from its intellectual property and support its creators.
Just as novel as Syllble’s future plans is the type of stories that Mr. Guerrier’s production house creates.
“We are about social change and prioritizing diverse perspectives,” Mr. Guerrier said. “We’re anti-racist and do different works of arts based on the need for the world to be better.”
An example is the production house’s One Humanity Writing Collective, which pairs women and non-binary creative writers from around the world to write science fiction stories that are inspired by their shared experiences and ideas – stories that imagine solutions to some of the world’s most protracted issues, including climate change.
The collectives of creators that comprise Mr. Guerrier’s brainchild also focus on ideas like Afrofuturism, which to Syllble means imagining the future by creating works of science fiction and fantasy that are rooted in Black history and culture. The work of the Sauúti Collective exemplifies this through its development of the Sauútiverse, a five-planet system orbiting a binary star that is deeply rooted in a variety of African mythology, language, and culture.
“I inherently believe that what’s going to save our planet is a fresh crop of imagination – an imagination that can empower people to see each other more and more,” Mr. Guerrier said. “We have to reimagine our own sense of self and as we relate to the planet because it’s like we’ve literally been thrusted into a game where everything has already been designed for us. The solutions of tomorrow require imagination.”
Mr. Guerrier has been quite imaginative in his pursuit of creating a lucrative multimedia production house that is rooted in collaborative, fictional worldbuilding and that merges science and technology to challenge the status quo – a production house where diverse and underrepresented creators own the rights to the works of sci-fi and fantasy that they develop. Syllble Books, the imprint provides a publishing pipeline for the collaborative works.
One could even take it a step further and describe Mr. Guerrier’s vision for changing the paradigm for creators and the entertainment industry as a “moonshot,” but it is this bold vision that could make the production house a visionary in the industry.
“When I look at it from an innovation from a standpoint – I see it,” said Syllble writer John Cho, who has worked as a consult for the National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange, advising TV shows and films looking for realistic outcomes for science fiction-genre TV series and movie scripts. “It hits me straight, square in the forehead. I think there’s a lot of growing up that has to happen, but I think if anything causes it to be successful, it’s Fabrice’s passion and determination.
“The idea of Syllble is probably something people have always held in their minds, but if it’s going to happen, he’s going be there or very close nearby.”
This is the final blog in a three-part series on Syllble, a science fiction and fantasy production house and publisher. This blog examines Syllble’s purpose, vision, and future. Drew Sullivan wrote this three-part series after interviewing writers and members of the Syllble community
Read Blog 1 “The Story of Syllble”
Read Blog 2 “Syllble: A Different Pathway“