Integrated Storytelling by Design

Concepts, Principles and Methods for New Narrative Dimensions

Klaus Paulsen

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367856991
• eBook ISBN: 9781000403824
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

This pioneering work equips you with the skills needed to create and design powerful stories and concepts for interactive, digital, multi-platform storytelling and experience design that will take audience engagement to the next level.

Klaus Sommer Paulsen presents a bold new vision of what storytelling can become if it is reinvented as an audience-centric design method. His practices unlock new ways of combining story with experience for a variety of existing, new and upcoming platforms. Merging theory and practice, storytelling and design principles, this innovative toolkit instructs the next generation of creators on how to successfully balance narratives, design and digital innovation to develop strategies and concepts that both apply and transcend current technology.

Packed with theory and exercises intended to unlock new narrative dimensions, Integrated Storytelling by Design is a must-read for creative professionals looking to shape the future of themed, branded and immersive experiences.

Part I

Story

“Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener.”

Michel de Montaigne

Chapter 5

The rise, fall and rise of the living story

What is storytelling? If you are a storyteller, what kind of storyteller are you? As storytelling evolves in new, intriguing and sometimes seemingly mysterious ways, the future of the story may not be telling it but bringing it to life in various innovative ways. The true revolution in storytelling is the new relationship between The Creator, The Story and The Audience, regardless of whether the creator is a representative of a discipline such as writing, moviemaking, game development, content marketing or themed experience design.

The true revolution in storytelling is the new relationship between The Creator, The Story and The Audience.

We are past the linearity of the creator presenting a static story to their audience; rather, any of the three parts influences one another. In Integrated Storytelling, the role of new technology, new format, innovation and invention is to support this dynamic, even if hidden out of plain sight of the audience.

Nearing the full potential of this new dynamic, the art and craft of storytelling have come to the next point of evolution. A milestone that is not only initiated by the many digital possibilities available to the storytellers, but also by the adaption of – and confidence – on the part of the audiences in using platforms for interacting with, influencing, creating and distributing stories themselves.

New technologies and spaces shared between the creator and the audience are advancing the very fabric of story structures forward, building a need for new narrative models or updated versions of existing ones. At first, it may be hard to fully grasp how ground-breaking this movement forward to the next step truly is. However, it cannot be ignored by storytellers of any kind, regardless of whether they are studying or teaching the craft or are aspiring or established professionals. The world of storytelling is becoming more than what it was, which will open up new challenges and opportunities.

We are already witnessing the first waves of what storytelling is going to become, with social media, co-creation and narratives transformed into immersive experiences, showing signs of what is to come. Gazing into the crystal ball, what awaits may be stories that seemingly come alive, capable of learning from and adapting to their audiences with no need for an author to edit or rewrite them. The story and real-time interaction with it are now simultaneously integrated in specific places and distributed worldwide to an unlimited number of locations.

The story and real-time interaction with it are now simultaneously integrated in specific places and distributed worldwide to an unlimited number of locations.

There may be more than one space, and not just the story, but the interaction with it can happen from anywhere. The world is the stage in which a multiverse of storyworlds grows.

STORYTELLING WITH POWER AND PURPOSE

Storytelling is part of the foundation of what makes up and has made up the connection that binds together humans from a handful of people in the earliest families from the dawn of time to the prehistoric tribes that settled in villages and finally established civilisations. Stories have conveyed messages, values and beliefs from one generation to the next for aeons. It has immense value for the community for sharing its culture between individuals and for each individual to understand his or her place in the world. The stories we share define and describe our values, dreams, fears and aspirations, and add to both personal and group narratives of who we are. They are fundamental representations of identity.

Thus, when the power of storytelling is addressed, it does not only concern the capacity of creating moments of entertainment or messages of marketing; it builds opinions, persuasions and beliefs, political as well as religious, progressive as well as aggressive towards those of different beliefs. Wars have been waged and heroes have been immortalised with written words or visual depictions of their quests and conquests. Progress in science and society has been inspired by visions and made possible by knowledge shared, and superstitions and urban legends have had their backward effects even in a modern society because of the powerful way their stories have been presented. Stories have the power to inspire people to take action for the better, as well as the power to seduce and blind them to the point of taking part in questionable, even despicable actions.

Driving all of the above forward, there have always been the dynamics of the relationship between the storyteller, the story, the presentation and the audience. From the earliest days of congregating around the campfire, these elements in combination have made up the storytelling experience for the audience. A great concept and an excellent presentation have always been able to move the mountains of human persuasions and beliefs. Whether presented by a tribe sage tens of thousands of years ago or by a TED speaker after their opening up to the public in 2009,¹ creating a connection with the audience is what makes the message or the morale come alive with persistence.

Some would say it takes more than images and words, but sometimes the presentation can do with less. It all comes down to the power of the message or the power of the story. Some of the best speakers in history have not used visual representation other than their own presence and spoken words to create unparalleled dynamics with the audience: Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and John F. Kennedy all stand as proof that the presentation can be carried without flashy visuals when the message is strong and resonates with the masses. In contrast, less convincing talks prove the opposite; that a weak message or story cannot be made stronger by even the most spectacular presentation. This also rings true in many current storytelling experiences, where the postproduction wrapping and effects are more developed than the concept and the storyline. The point is that we can throw as much technology and glitter at our story experiences, but in the end, their success with audiences all depend on strong concepts, story and experience alike.

A weak message or story cannot be made stronger by even the most spectacular presentation.

A HISTORY OF IMAGES, WORDS AND BEYOND

The oral storytelling traditions that were conceived by our ancestors would most likely have allowed for change – even on the spot – by the storyteller, for him or her to gain, retain and build on the interest and fascination of the audience. The ability to improvise would enable the storyteller to adapt a narrative to its audience, meaning that the audience could have a direct influence on the storyline. The spoken story would become an organic entity, a living storyline that would evolve during and after the interaction with the audience, ensuring the storyteller's grip on the tribe or their settlement simultaneously.

The living story

The concept of a living story is not exclusive to Integrated Storytelling. It has been defined as being embodied in not just the person, but in tribes, communities and tribal communities. It has been stated that we live out the ‘living story’ in our daily lives,² and the ‘living story’ takes on a life all its own, and lives through us. The idea of a living concept is not exclusive to academia, either, as it is used by consultancies, studios and agencies for responsiveness, adaptability and even to the point of using it as a company name.

In the context of Integrated Storytelling, however, the living story is to be seen as a narrative entity that is not only lived by people or used as the basis for improvisation. As an organic concept, the living story allows the influence of audiences, particularly in real time, which makes the story, and how it is experienced, a dynamic outcome of an interaction between the story and the audience. The story experience may be scripted and designed, but the true, final form is not shown before it is interacted with.

The living story allows the influence of audiences, particularly in real time, which makes the story, and how it is experienced, a dynamic outcome of an interaction between the story and the audience.

With new technology, this interaction and mutual influence can now happen directly between the audience and the story itself, making the story, metaphorically spoken, come alive. Adding online technology, this influential interaction can even happen at the same time from anywhere around the world. For the first time ever, the audience, the creator and the story are not limited by distance or other physical confinements. The responsive story experiences have become ubiquitous, but not necessarily universally similar.

Visual mediation

The earliest examples of the living story becoming visualised and more or less static through depiction are the cave paintings and drawings created tens of thousands of years ago; such as the 42,000-old depictions of seals found in Spain or the preceding non-figurative nine red lines found in South Africa, dating as far back as 73,000 years.

The illustrations could still act as a scene for the prehistorical storyteller, but the big leap was that the audience could experience the story without the narrative presented by an appointed individual, especially when the art represented recognisable scenes like hunting woolly mammoths.

Prehistoric drawing in cave at Lascaux.

Some of the story concepts and elements we use today have been engraved in our collective human consciousness from the time of the cave paintings. One example of this is the ‘The Venus and The Sorcerer’ in The Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, Southern France, with its depictions of its archetypical titular characters accompanied by a beastly character. Three entities that have been encountered in an almost endless number of fairy tales, myths and legends throughout the history of humankind, leading up to the contemporary success of Harry Potter and his kin. Part of the reason why the magical tale of the young wizard resonated so well with so many is that the understanding of and connection with his world was already there.

PRINT MEDIATION

With the invention of books and printing, invented first by the Chinese, then evolved further with replaceable letters by Gutenberg in 1450, a revolution in storytelling began. Due to the sheer scale of rep...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Story
• Part II Design
• Part III Audience
• Part IV Experience
• Part V Convergence
• Part VI Creation
• Part VII Application
• Futurecasting
• Afterword
• Literature and media list
• Index