All my life I’ve been a fierce force of imagination, persistence, and hard work: like a dragon hunting for gold. But instead of treasure, I’ve been searching for stories to tell and ways to make an impact.

Born in Belarus, I studied journalism in Bulgaria and worked in marketing in Russia, but storytelling has always been my true passion. I create narratives that allow people to explore fresh perspectives in a safe, immersive way.

As a queer, neurodivergent woman from a patriarchal country, I’m passionate about shedding light on complex topics through my work. Over the years, I’ve designed more than 100 LARP games, written 10+ original tabletop campaigns, and worked as a script supervisor on the short film Mein Name Akim (2024), which tells the story of transgender refugees in Germany.

During my MA in Serial Storytelling at IFS Cologne, I honed my skills across genres, working on solo projects as well as collaborating in Writers' Rooms.

Currently, I’m co-developing a visual novel game with a co-author as a passion project.

Now that I've completed my degree, I’m eager to bring my creativity to TV and gaming, crafting stories in both English and German.

Dragons never stop breathing fire. And neither do I, with an endless flow of ideas and stories I can’t wait to share.

Alena Lysiakova

I’m currently writing my first vertical series, and here’s my biggest takeaway so far:


🐲 Momentum is everything.

#Verticals don’t live in perfect structure or beautiful prose. They live in forward motion. Every scene has to pull the reader into the next one immediately without warm-ups or lingering. 

And that’s both the hardest and the most fun part.

You constantly ask yourself:
 👉 Does this end with a reason to keep scrolling?
 👉 Does this scene move, emotionally or plot-wise?
 👉 Can I afford to slow down here? (Usually no)

It’s intense, slightly addictive, and weirdly liberating. Once you lock into the rhythm, the story starts running on its own momentum.

#VerticalSeries #Screenwriting #Storytelling

Alena Lysiakova 🐉

Narrative designer and screenwriter ▶️ Let's create stories that make an impact

Finishing my first #vertical rom-com sample taught me one thing very clearly: you don’t write episodes from the beginning. You write them from the cliffhanger. 🙂 


In verticals, the ending isn’t a nice wrap-up. It’s the engine. Every episode has to land on a moment that reframes what we just saw, emotionally, romantically, or comedically, and makes the next episode unavoidable.
So instead of asking, “How does this episode start?” I started asking, “What’s the last thing I want the viewer to feel?” 

💡 Once the cliffhanger is clear, the rest of the episode snaps into place. Scenes suddenly know how long they’re allowed to be. Dialogue stops rambling. Every beat either pushes toward that final turn or it gets cut.

Writing verticals this way changed how I think about structure in general.
Endings first. Then precision. Then mercy for nothing that doesn’t earn its place. In most of the cases, if the cliffhanger works, the episode works. Everything else is just scaffolding.

#VerticalSeries #Screenwriting #StoryStructure

🐲 Ever wondered why some audio games pull you in instantly, and others just sound like long audiobooks with buttons?

It’s rarely a tech problem. It’s almost always a writing problem.
That’s why I’m running a live masterclass on writing for audio interactive games, and it’s built as a write-along session, not a lecture. 

What we’ll do together:
- Start with a simple inner pitch and turn it into a playable audio scene
- Learn how to write stories that work without visuals, using sound, silence, and pacing
- Craft dialogue that actually survives being spoken aloud
- Design micro-choices that create emotional pressure instead of fake branching
- Learn how to ask the right questions that drive interactive audio forward
- Break down the most common mistakes in audio interactive writing, and fix them with less text 

We’ll also explore TWIST, the interactive audio engine by EarReality, and how it makes writing for audio easy, intuitive, and exciting, even if you’re not technical.

You’ll leave with:
- A playable audio micro-scene you wrote during the session
- A repeatable way of thinking about interactive audio writing
- Clear next steps to continue developing your story

This is for you if you’re:
- A writer curious about games but focused on story
- A narrative designer moving into audio
- An audio drama creator exploring interactivity
- A creator looking for new storytelling formats

📝 Come ready to write. This is a write-along interactive session.
Event details & registration are below 👇 
https://lnkd.in/eiV_CTyB

Audio interactive games are not audiobooks. They are not podcasts with choices. And they don’t work if you “just write good dialogue.”

This live masterclass is a writing-first, hands-on session focused entirely on how stories change when they are written for ears, choice, and listener agency. We are not talking about game mechanics or coding. We are talking about writing — and how to rethink it for interactive audio.

📝 Be ready to write a lot. And interact a lot. This masterclass is designed for people who learn by doing, not by watching slides.

Lawrence Marable, Wynona Cybil Alwyn and 23 other attendees

View event: Masterclass: Writing for Interactive Audio Games

Masterclass: Writing for Interactive Audio Games

One of the fastest ways to break immersion in an audio game is letting the protagonist know more than the player. 👾 


The moment that happens, intimacy is gone. 💀 
Audio works because it’s close. Personal. Almost conspiratorial. The player is inside the character’s head. And that only works when discovery happens together.

Shared ignorance is powerful.

When neither the player nor the protagonist knows what’s behind the door, every sound matters. Every pause carries weight. Every choice feels risky, not because it’s complex, but because it’s unknown.

From a narrative design perspective, this changes how you structure information:
🐲 Exposition becomes something you earn, not something you dump
🐲 Revelations land harder because they surprise both sides
🐲 Trust forms between player and character; you’re figuring it out together

The opposite is also true. If the protagonist casually hints at knowledge the player doesn’t have (“You already know why this is bad…”), the player is suddenly outside the story, trying to catch up instead of living it.

In audio, dramatic irony is a luxury you rarely need. Alignment beats cleverness.

👉 Design your stories so the player and protagonist learn, doubt, and panic at the same pace. That’s where audio stops being a format and becomes an experience.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #StoryArchitecture

Audio games are often designed as one-time experiences. 


You listen, you move forward, you reach an ending. The format is intimate and linear, so replayability is usually not the goal. 
👉 But it could be.

Replayability in audio doesn’t mean adding more branches or content. It means designing for a new understanding.

If you want a second playthrough to feel rewarding, focus on how knowledge changes the experience:
🐲 Early lines that seem insignificant
🐲 Casual remarks or offhand comments that only gain meaning once the player knows what’s coming
🐲 Consistent NPC behavior

Characters don’t need twists, just logic. On replay, players start recognizing patterns that were always there. 
👉 Choices that don’t announce their importance
👉 Decisions that feel neutral at first, but quietly shape tone, trust, or outcomes later
👉 Consequences that echo instead of exploding
👉 Subtle shifts rather than obvious feedback

The difference becomes clear only in comparison.

If a second playthrough doesn’t make the player notice what they missed the first time, the story was built to be consumed, not discovered. And audio, of all formats, benefits the most from discovery.

Do you replay audio games at all?

#AudioGames #InteractiveStorytelling

In audio games, choices aren’t just content. 
👉 They’re mechanics.


“Open the door.” “Crack the door quietly.” “Kick the door in.”
Same action. Completely different game.

The phrasing doesn’t just describe behavior, it tells the player how to feel about the choice. Safe. Careful. Aggressive. Desperate. Confident. Panicked.

That’s why writing choices is a design task, not just a writing one.
When I work on audio narratives, I think about:
🐲 What emotional tone does this phrasing signal?
🐲 Does it invite caution or recklessness?
🐲 Does it frame the player as in control or reacting under pressure?
🐲 Does it suggest consequences without spelling them out?

The player isn’t only choosing what to do. They’re choosing how they are doing it and who they are in this moment.

If your choices are all written in the same neutral voice, you’re flattening player agency, even if the branches are complex. In audio, wording is gameplay.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #GameWriting

I’m hosting a remastered round of our free EarReality webinar:
“The Business of Interactive Audio: TWIST Engine & Monetization”

If you’re a(n):
🐲author or narrative designer
🐲voice actor or podcaster
🐲 brand/content marketer
…and you’re curious how to turn stories (or your voice) into interactive audio experiences that can actually earn royalties, this is for you.

I’ll cover:
🎧 A practical intro to the TWIST Engine – what writers & performers really need to know
💰 How self-publishing, collaborations, and monetization work on TWIST & TWIST Tales
🎭 A “lean back” listening session + breakdown of how an interactive story is built step by step

Wish to attend? Link is below 👇 
https://lnkd.in/eWjk-bNA

Feel free to join, share, or tag a writer / voice actor who keeps saying “one day I’ll try something interactive.” This is the day.

#interactiveaudio #narrativedesign #voiceacting #writingcommunity #EarReality #TWIST

🎤 🎧 We’re back with a remastered version of our FREE webinar for authors, narrative designers, voice actors, podcasters, and brand marketers who want to understand how interactive audio actually works – and how to create it. 🕹️

Last time we ran this session, we got a lot of “Wait, this is way more doable than I thought.”

So we fine-tuned it, added more concrete examples, and are doing Round 2: Remastered.

What we’ll cover this time:

✅ TWIST Engine – Updated Intro
A clear walkthrough of the tool we use to build interactive audio stories (with more focus on what storytellers and voice actors really need to know).

✅ Business Opportunities on TWIST & TWIST Tales
How self-publishing, collaborations, and monetization work on the platform – and what that means for you as a creator or performer.

✅ Practical Listening + Workflow Demo
We start with ~30 minutes of listening to an interactive audio story, then break down exactly how it was created step by step.

If you want to:
create interactive audio yourself,
evaluate the format for professional use, or
explore future publishing & royalty opportunities as a creator or voice actor,
…this webinar gives you the essentials in one session.

📌 The registration link is directly beneath this post.

If you want to support the event, feel free to like, share, or repost 😎

#EarReality #TWIST #marketing #storytelling #games #gaming #stories #audiobooks #audio #RPGs #writing #books

Christian Mahnke, Aleksandra Kovalchuk and 13 other attendees

View event: EarReality Webinar: The Business of Interactive Audio & TWIST Remastered

EarReality Webinar: The Business of Interactive Audio & TWIST Remastered

Flowcharts are great. They tell you what happens in the game.
👉 But audio players don’t navigate through logic. 


They navigate through emotion.
They stay because they’re tense. They leave when that tension flattens.
That’s why, when designing audio games, I think in emotional curves before plot structure:
👾 Where does anxiety peak?
👾 Where does the player finally breathe?
👾 When does curiosity replace fear?
👾 Where does silence do more work than dialogue?

This directly affects architecture:
🐲 High emotional intensity = fewer choices, tighter scenes
🐲 Low intensity = space for exploration or reflection
🐲 Too many branches at an emotional peak = cognitive overload
🐲 No emotional variation = disengagement

If your emotional intensity stays on one level for too long, the player’s brain checks out, no matter how good the writing is. 

So yes, map your plot. But also map how it feels to listen minute by minute. Because in audio, emotion is navigation.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #GameArchitecture

⏱️ Starting in ONE hour! 
Our free webinar on interactive audio storytelling and the business behind it is about to go live 🎤🎧

If you’re curious about narrative design for audio, TWIST, or how creators can turn stories into actual projects (not just ideas), now’s the moment.

👉 Jump in here before we start 
https://lnkd.in/eWjk-bNA

🐲 Audio games shine when they tap into instinct. 


Fear. Curiosity. Trust. Suspicion. That split-second feeling of “this feels wrong” or “I should follow this voice.” 

💀 What they don’t do well?
Turning into memory exams.

If a good outcome depends on recalling a name, a code, or a tiny detail from 20 minutes ago, you’re fighting the format. Audio isn’t built for note-taking. It’s built for presence.

Instead, strong audio choices are designed around:
🐲 Emotional recognition (“This voice feels unsafe.”)
🐲 Pattern sensing (“This keeps happening when I trust them.”)
🐲 Narrative logic (“They warned me about this kind of room.”)

That way, even if the player doesn’t remember the exact detail, they still feel like they made a meaningful choice, not a random guess.

Good audio design doesn’t ask: “Did you remember?”
It asks: “What does your gut tell you right now?”

That’s where audio becomes powerful.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames

Quick reminder: our free EarReality webinar is happening tomorrow 🎧


If interactive audio has been sitting on your “sounds cool but how does it actually work?” list, this one’s for you. We’ll talk tools, storytelling, and the business side (yes, the part where you can actually publish and monetize).

🐲 Expect practical insights, real examples, and no unnecessary fluff. 

See you tomorrow 👇 
https://lnkd.in/eWjk-bNA

⏱️ Starting in ONE hour!

The masterclass on writing for interactive audio is about to begin. 
If you’re in — grab your spot now and join live.

👉 https://lnkd.in/edpWX8TG

See you there 🎧 🐲

Unconventional Leadership Enthusiast | Creator and propagator of the "5E's of Leadership" | Empowering Leaders to Transform & Thrive in the Age of Change

When leaders face tough situations — turnarounds, post-acquisition chaos, leadership breakdowns, toxic culture, execution failures — they don’t need advice or frameworks.
They need someone who can step in, take ownership, and deliver results.

That’s what I do.

I bring 20+ years of senior HR and organizational leadership experience across EMEA, with 10+ large-scale transformation assignments. I embed with executive teams, stabilize situations fast (3–6 months), and build sustainable leadership and organizational capability over 12–18 months.

I work at the intersection of leadership, decision-making, and organizational systems — where strong individuals often struggle to operate as a coherent whole under pressure.

⸻

Selected impact:

→ German manufacturing business in crisis
Leadership vacuum, toxic culture, massive talent exodus.
Turned €10M annual losses into breakeven within 12 months.

→ Three Italian plants operating as warring factions
No alignment, no shared priorities.
Built cross-plant leadership alignment; European product sales increased by ~25%.

→ Young leadership team blocked by entrenched resistance
Coached and supported them through a full transformation.
Order execution speed improved by 30%; complete business model turnaround within one year.

→ Severe labor availability crisis across Eastern Europe
Attrition reduced from 25% to 8%; seasonal staffing stabilized through leadership and HR mobilization.

→ Quality function collapse after global product recall
Rebuilt the function from scratch, replaced half of leadership.
All critical issues resolved within 12 months; quality records broken year after year since.

→ Commercial organization with toxic culture and recurring losses
Transformed into the fastest-growing commercial team in Europe within 18 months.

⸻

How I work

Beyond classic interim leadership, I increasingly use facilitated business simulations to make leadership and decision-making dynamics visible under pressure.
They help executive teams see — within hours — patterns that often remain hidden in meetings for years.

This is not training and not theory.
It’s a way to surface how decisions interact, where responsibility concentrates or disappears, and why strong teams sometimes underperform as a system.

⸻

Where I typically engage

• Crisis stabilization
• Post-acquisition integration
• Leadership transitions
• Culture and execution transformation

Scope: EMEA.

⸻

Available for Interim CHRO / HR Director assignments and executive-level transformation work.
High travel is not an issue.


Mikhail Lvovskii

I've been pushed out of an organization before.

Not for underperforming.
But for being right, too loudly.

I called out the problems,uncomfortable truths about leadership and culture that everyone saw, but no one wanted to discuss out in the open.

Privately, every leader said, "You're right."
Publicly, they chose peace over progress.

A few months later, I was "reorganized out."

I was advised many times to learn how to "manage stakeholders".
The obvious lesson would be to stay quiet.

But that's not the lesson I learned.

Here's my real takeaway:
- Pick your battles, but never pretend the battle doesn't exist.
- Some organizations want to be fixed.
- Some just want to look like they're trying.

If you're the one who solves hard problems, learn to spot the difference early.
Your energy is too valuable to waste in places that only want the illusion of progress.

Interim HR Director/CHRO | Turnaround & Transformation Specialist | Helping leaders succeed when context is tough

No alternative text description for this image

A CEO once said, "I need you to fix my HR team."

I spent a week inside.

After watching how things really ran, I went back to him and said:

"Your HR team isn't broken. Your leadership team is. HR is just the mirror."

He didn't love that answer.

But here's what I saw:

- Leaders sidestepped HR, then blamed them for being out of the loop.

- Leaders made hiring decisions, then blamed HR when those hires didn't work.

- Leaders avoided hard conversations, then blamed HR for "cultural issues."

HR was doing exactly what leadership allowed.

If you want better HR, look in the mirror first.

Fix your leadership, and HR will follow.

Something uncomfortable hit me over the past 5 years.

I spent two decades chasing the classic playbook.
Big companies. Regional roles. Clear track. Predictable future.

Then I stepped off.

Not because I failed.
But because I saw how the game changes at the top.

The higher I climbed, the more political it got.
It became less about fixing real problems.
More about protecting seats and managing optics.

Turns out, I'm wired for turnarounds, not politics.

I want the calls that start with:
"Help. This is broken. We need to fix it."

Not the ones that end with:
"Let's schedule another alignment meeting."

So I tried consulting, coaching, training.
They were fine, but short-term. 
You show up, give advice, then politics and old habits creep right back in.

2025 taught me this:
I'm done playing in other people's games.

2026 will be about impact, not titles.
Real problems. Real turnarounds. Real change.

What did 2025 teach you?

My first turnaround almost broke me.

I was just over 30, full of ambition, convinced that if I just worked harder, I could fix anything.

The job was huge. Transform a fast-growing country into an independent region. Build everything from scratch. Change old habits, set up new processes.

Here's what I ran into:

- There was no real team, just job titles
- Managers agreed in meetings, then did whatever they wanted
- The culture valued hierarchy over common sense

So I did what most do. I worked long hours. Built impressive plans. Laid out all the change on paper.

Nothing moved.

The breakthrough didn't come from another plan. It came when I stopped talking and started listening.

Not the "HR listening" where you nod along and take notes.

Real listening. The kind where you're silent long enough to hear what people are afraid to say out loud.

That's when things started to shift.

Turnarounds don't start with strategy. They start with trust.

Trust starts with listening.

Best HR advice I ever got? Came from a factory floor supervisor in Poland.

"You HR people love your processes. But my guys don't read your policies. They watch what happens when someone breaks them."

I was two weeks into a turnaround. I had a deck full of slides about culture transformation.

Nobody cared.

They didn't listen to my speeches. They watched what I did when the first line manager screamed at an employee.

They watched what happened when someone missed their targets.

They watched who got promoted. Who got sidelined.

And they watched if poor behavior was ignored, or if it had consequences.

Here's the truth: Culture isn't what you write down, or what you present.

It's what you tolerate.

The hardest job I ever had wasn't the turnaround.

It was what came after.

Manufacturing business, deep in trouble. It needed a reset, and we gave it one. Turned things around. Brought the company back to life.

Then the parent company dropped the next task: "Now keep it running."

I lasted 8 months. Not because I failed, but because I was bored out of my mind.

Building is one thing. Maintaining is another.

Some people are wired for steady-state. For stable operations. For the rhythms of routine.

That's not me.

You have to know what you're built for. Not just to prove you can hang on, but to focus where you make the most impact.

I'm built for the mess. Not the maintenance.

Most team diagnostics are a waste of time.

Personality assessments. 360 feedback. Engagement surveys.

I've deployed all of them. Different countries. Different sectors. Results were always the same.

People answer based on who they wish they were. Not who they are.

The only accurate diagnostic I've ever run didn't involve paperwork.

It was a simulation. I watched a leadership team fight over a fake budget.

Ninety minutes of pressure told me everything: 
Who dominates. Who shuts down. Who gambles. Who freezes.

No test or survey ever comes close.

If you want to know how your team really works, stop handing out forms.

Put them in a real situation. Watch what happens.

Stop measuring what's easy. Start measuring what matters.

HR professionals love to say people are our greatest asset.

Then budget season hits.

Suddenly, people become our biggest cost.

I once sat in a meeting where we spent two hours analyzing travel expenses line by line. 

Then, in ten minutes, the team decided to cut the entire L&D budget.

Someone said, We'll bring it back next year.

We didn't.

Here's the truth. The best leaders I've worked with never repeated empty slogans about people.

Instead, they said, Show me your org chart and your budget. I'll tell you what you actually value.

What you fund is what matters.

If you want leaders who build high-performing teams, start by checking where the money goes.

Because a budget is a strategy with numbers attached.

And people see the difference.

The fastest turnaround I ever led? It took just 90 days.

Not because I had a smarter plan. 
Not because I was a genius.

It was fast because the hard part was already done. The previous leader had diagnosed everything that was broken. He spelled out exactly what needed to change.

But he couldn't pull the trigger.

When I showed up, his summary was right there: 
A file on his desk called, "What we need to do but won't."

He knew. His team knew. They all knew. 

My job wasn't insight. It was permission.

Organizations don't always need a new strategy. 
Sometimes, they just need someone who's ready to do the obvious work.

Execution, not ideas, is often what's missing.

A factory supervisor once cornered me with a simple question.

"Why do you HR people always start with the org chart?"

I didn't have a good answer.

He looked me dead in the eye.

"I've worked here 18 years. I've seen 6 org charts. Same problems every time. Different boxes."

He was right.

Org charts are HR's favorite way to look busy. We shuffle boxes. We invent new department names. We promise "synergies."

But we avoid the hard conversation.

The only question that matters:
Do you have the right people in these seats? Yes or no.

If yes, the org chart barely matters.
If no, no chart in the world will save you.

Stop fussing with the boxes. Start fixing the team.

Unpopular opinion: Most HR best practices make crisis worse, not better.

Here's why.

Annual performance reviews? They move at the speed of molasses. In a turnaround, you need real feedback in days, not in a year.
Competency frameworks? Too slow. I'm looking for people who can deliver right now, not check boxes.
Engagement surveys? Forget it. People want action, not another survey.

Every time I enter a company in trouble, my first question is simple,
Which HR processes are you running because someone told you to, not because they work?

We cut half of them on day one.

Suddenly, leaders have energy again. Teams focus on what matters.

What actually gets results in a crisis?
- Right people in the right roles
- Clear expectations
- Fast decisions

Everything else is just window dressing.

If you're stuck in chaos, try removing instead of adding.

A plant director once asked me to "fix" his underperformers.

I asked one question: When did you last give them honest feedback?

Silence.

Here's the real problem.

Most "performance issues" aren't about skills or attitude. They're about leaders dodging hard conversations. They avoid feedback for years, then expect HR to clean up the mess. 

Nobody's surprised when the whole system starts to creak.

The employee isn't suddenly useless. They've just never been told the truth.

If you haven't had the conversation yourself, don't call it a performance issue.

Call it what it is: avoidance.

Ever had to reset a team almost from scratch?

I once walked into a unit with 8 managers. Within months, 6 were gone.

Not because they were bad people. Just wrong for what the business needed next.

But here's the moment everyone underestimates... 
The real test wasn't letting people go.

It was looking the 2 who stayed in the eye and saying, 
"I need you to trust me. This will get better."

They had just watched most of their peers leave. 
They had every reason to update their resumes.

But they stayed.

Two years later, the same team broke every performance record.

People think turnarounds are about who you cut. 
They're really about finding who you can build around, and believing in them when it's uncomfortable.

That's how you turn chaos into momentum.

Ona totally not a serious note. 
What do you play with on the weekend?
I’m playing with AI :)
From a relatively innocent photo with sax, this funny silly video which everyone makes now :)
I bet if the traction will be high or not.

taplio

The Battle

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Mikhail Lvovskii

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taplio

The Battle

Alena Lysiakova

Mikhail Lvovskii

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