Storytelling in the Wild—A Guide for Culture-Shifting Storytelling in Natural Settings (2024)

True stories matter. The phrase ‘storytelling’ can bring to mind fictional accounts, creative license, and even fibbing in some cultures. Fiction is a powerful tool in entertainment yet can have harmful effects when applying to our colleagues. Very few of us like feeling like we’re manipulated, which is essentially what happens when we mix fictional and non-fictional elements in the stories we tell.

1. True stories allow for relatability and trust: So when you’re telling stories as a tool for driving cultural changes in your organization, resist the urge to use hypothetical situations, composite sketches or unrelated fables to share a “truth” or a lesson. Here’s why that’s harmful: when listeners perceive an intent by the storyteller to persuade them, and the details or characters feel inauthentic or run counter to their own lived experiences, the story loses its power. It is also true that if you’re trying to correct misperceptions or rumors, doing so with a story in which details may be constructed to match what you wish existed versus what does could perpetuate mistrust rather than build trust.
2. How you construct the story is important: So, your story not only has to be true, but it also has to feel true. The credibility and authenticity of the storyteller matters. And the credibility of who the story is about also matters. The most affected are often the most effective, so it’s critical that your story includes the authentic voices of those who have experienced the events or systems of the story for themselves. This is especially important in UNHCR, where trust and truth between the organization, communities, and partners are essential for meeting the most basic objectives.

Persuasive stories are memorable and compelling. When we experience a great story, we feel ourselves become part of that world momentarily—and in the best, we may come back to our own world “transformed.” Melanie Green, Ph.D., who has studied the theory of narrative transportation extensively, identified three aspects of narrative transportation, including:

1. The opportunity to enter the emotional world of a character — when we’re transported into a story, we often feel the strong emotions the characters do. That can sometimes result even in temporary physiological changes in our own bodies. Effective narrative transportation activates strong cognitive and emotional empathy versus just trying to trigger compassion.
2. Compelling characters who we identify with — we need to include details and experiences that allow us to connect our own identities or lives with the characters featured in your story. This isn’t necessarily just representation, which of course is helpful, but gives us an opportunity to identify with people unlike us if we experience moments where our lived experiences at some point align with those of the story.
3. Vivid detail — when we experience a story, we create that world in our minds and tie it into the schemas our brains create to process the information that comes in. Tying detail into our senses, especially strong visual language, is very effective in generating transportation effects.

It’s worth working toward narrative transportation, because when people experience it, they are more likely to take the perspective of a central character and less likely to argue or disagree with the central point of the story.

Great stories feel new. Research suggests that the stories that travel fastest are those that are novel, which is part of the reason that conspiracy theories and “fake news” gain such traction. Novelty is also important when you’re trying to disrupt an existing culture. Telling stories that offer additional context can be a way to bring novelty and bring valuable and inclusive context to stories that feel like part of an organization’s historic culture.

One way to bring novelty to your stories is to switch up the basic plot structure you’re using. Using a plot structure that is familiar makes the information you’re providing comfortable, but using an unexpected plot for that context makes the story interesting. Christopher Booker[1] identified seven basic plots that many stories follow:

1. Overcoming the Monster, in which a group of people work together to overcome a threat to their community or land. We see this one a lot in anti-refugee narratives.
2. Rags to Riches (or riches to rags), in which someone who has nothing gains a fortune, loses it, and then regains it once more. These stories are also told in the reverse, and are often used by the humanitarian sector.
3. The Quest, in which a group of people seek an object or an event.
4. Voyage and Return, in which a character travels to a distant land and returns transformed.
5. Comedy, in which a series of ridiculous and confusing events results in a happy ending.
6. Tragedy, in which an otherwise good character has a fatal flaw, which results in their death or others’.
7. Rebirth, in which a character we dislike experiences something transformative.

We’ve observed that often, particular sectors rely on a single plot structure almost exclusively. For example, academic institutions rely on quest narratives, particularly in their storytelling about scientific inquiry. In the humanitarian sector, we hear a lot of rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags stories about the people we help or a quest or overcoming the monster story about experiences of our colleagues overcoming challenges in their operations.

As the storyteller, you have control over the perspective from which you share a story, and the moments in time when the story begins and ends. By shifting the focus of your story to a different central character, or making deliberate choices about when the story begins and ends, you may be able to shift a rags-to-riches story to an overcoming the monster story.

Another way to bring novelty to your storytelling in a constructive way is to tell counter narratives. Counter narratives offer a new perspective on stories that are often told. They break stereotypes and assumptions. For example, a dominant narrative in the United States is that it is a land of opportunity in which anyone willing to work hard can grow wealth. An important counter narrative is that class, income rigidity and systemic injustices experienced most acutely by Black Americans don’t provide the same opportunities to use hard work and self-determination to overcome economic situations.

We can also use an unexpected genre of story to make a story feel new. For example, one of the most effective stories we’ve seen about soldiers experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder didn’t appear on the newspaper publication’s front page. Rather, it was featured in the wedding vows section. Climate scientist and writer Kate Marvel also employs surprising storytelling methods such as using the children’s fable The Three Little Pigs to emphasize climate messages in an amusing and accessible way.

Using genres like romance, fantasy, mystery and animal stories that aren’t directly tied to your topic can offer a way to break through to people who are experiencing story fatigue or aren’t necessarily looking for stories about your topic. For example, the film the Beasts of the Southern Wild bridges reality and fantasy with its use of magical realism to depict complex issues surrounding racial and environmental injustice. The film centers around a forgotten Louisiana bayou community and a six-year-old girl, Hushpuppy. Through the optimism and imagination of Hushpuppy, the story makes slow violence against her community visible in the form of beasts that embody the ongoing climate crisis. Through situating the slow violence of climate collapse through the eyes of Hushpuppy’s imagination, the story engages non-traditional audiences with narratives related to climate justice, particularly the intersections of racial and environmental violence.

Use the narrative arc to create patterns, manage uncertainty and generate unexpectedness. If storytelling doesn’t come naturally to you, there are tools that can help. The narrative arc, also known as Freytag’s arc, offers a map for establishing characters, creating tension and resolving your story. When stories follow this arc, and we experience uncertainty about the outcome of the story, we become engrossed and take the perspective of the main character of the story.

The arc works like this: in the opening of a story, we are introduced to characters and setting. That’s the flat part on the left. As the story unfolds, we meet new characters who introduce tension and uncertainty into the story—that’s where the line goes up. At the peak of the arc, the central character faces a challenge they may not be able to overcome. As the arc declines, the central character works with others to address the problem, and the flat line at the end suggests their future lives after the story has unwound. Eastern cultures may use a similar story structure, which includes an introduction and exposition leading to a twist and then a resolution.

Your favorite song or piece of music can help show why this works. For example, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet starts to create a pattern with the melody. In the first few moments of the piece, he introduces two melodies, symbolizing the two central characters. You hear these two melodies several times in the piece as the story of the star-crossed lovers unfolds. Around the 12-minute mark, the themes erupt in conflict, which represents the top of the dramatic arc. Then, toward the end (around the 18-minute mark, depending on which recording you’re listening to), he alters the melody by shifting slightly from what he created earlier in the piece, creating a deceptive cadence. A deceptive cadence is when what comes next is not what we think will—in music we expect to hear one note or chord and instead hear another. This translates into a surprise ending that many consider the most beautiful part of the piece.

Great stories share structure and devices with your favorite pieces of music. Another way to practice this idea is to plot your favorite movies or TV shows against the narrative arc.

Now You:

Use the science of structure and narrative transportation to make your stories fascinating.

Plot your story on the narrative arc:

[1] Booker’s work is based largely on Western literature.