Story/CO: Why storytellers should embrace digital transformation
Story/CO is planned as a framework for all storytellers (from marketers to writers) who consider the digital transformation an opportunity for — and not a threat to — their storytelling. These are my first thoughts on how we should embrace digital resources to reach and inspire people with our storytelling in the future.
In short, my thesis is: modern stories that want to leverage the digital transformation must accompany the audience and function in a context-oriented and cooperative manner. They must also have a physical presence in the lives of their target groups. These four basic requirements were the inspiration for the concept’s name: Story/CO. “CO” stands for the four cornerstones I just mentioned:
- COmpanion: A modern story inevitably accompanies its recipients everywhere: it is always where they are.
- COntext: A story reacts to both the individual and medial contexts.
- COoperation: A story must have a direction and an intention, but it must still function interactively and accommodate user input.
- COrporeal: The perfect story not only takes place in our minds through imagination, but also integrates small or large physical stimuli (sensations).
Now let’s take things one at a time.
Companion: The story as a hunt
I will spare you the references to the usual studies, because by now we all know that our readers have very little time and very short attention spans. We may find this regrettable, but it is a reality that we have to deal with if we want to keep telling successful stories. Whether offline or online, we seldom find people who have more than five minutes’ time to engage with our stories. And it is virtually impossible to predict exactly when they will be able to take advantage of these five minutes. In our technologically mobile era, it could be in bed in the morning, on the subway, or in the bathroom at night. And no matter when our five minutes come, we have to seize them.
Therefore, we should not have to force anyone to pick up a paper or visit a particular website to read our story. By the time people have the leisure to devote some time to what we have to say, we should already be where they are. This is why the backbone of a modern story is no longer a long, closed continuous text at a fixed place of publication. Instead, it is a chain of impulses in social networks or on a messenger platform. It is precisely these “virtual places” that people visit when they have free time. We have to be available there — as a WhatsApp message, an Instagram video, or a Facebook post or update.
At the moment, I would recommend that you announce the central storyline on your Messenger account. Everything your contacts need to know to follow the story should be laid out there. That is where you are closest to people and their habits and have many media options. You can even grab peoples’ attention here and there via push and notifications. And rest assured, a chain of texts can actually end up as an understandable whole. We no longer need the page.
Context: The narrator knows it all
It is time to redefine the “omniscient narrator.” Narrators should not only know everything about the story — but also about their readers, recipients, and audience.
First, this concerns the individuals who follow the story. The story may vary depending on the respective reader’s age, gender, or stage of life. Characteristics like these can be identified, including the name of each individual with whom we interact. And they should have an impact on our story: for example, they can influence how we tell it and where we tell it. In other words, one story can use many different styles, media, and platforms.
That’s another reason why I like Messenger as a central medium for storytelling so much. With a few simple queries and decision trees, I can lay the groundwork for the best possible narrative experience. If I have enough resources, I can offer completely different stories. But even with less investment, I can adjust the frequency and length of my text to match each medium and its duration, etc.
Second yet related to my first argument, I obviously narrate in the context of platforms and their media peculiarities. If I want to offer Lina something visual in my story, I send her to my Instagram story via a link and use the excellent multimedia capabilities of this particular platform to let her experience one day in my protagonist’s life — through photos, videos, and stickers. Or I might send Martin to medium.com, where I placed a traditional (written) chapter with a reading time of 7 minutes.
In short, modern stories not only take the context — individuals and the media — but also the dynamics and relationships among these contexts into account.
Cooperation: Interact, always
Social media have brought about change, and they have done so by changing the audience’s expectations regarding its own potential influence. Consider the success of the gaming industry, which lives from interacting with users and not from ready-made stories.
My conclusion is that stories must offer the option to influence their course of action through their recipients’ decisions. There’s no longer one story; by definition, there are always several. Story recipients may not be gods, but they are at least demigods. We need to give them choices as a way of actively involving them and sustaining their engagement: in the modern world, a story is always a game. If Lina wants a character to die, it should die. And if Martin wants the story to continue in Manila, it will. The amount of choice (the number of story variations) we can offer depends on the material and our resources. But a certain amount of cooperation between the audience and the narrator is inevitable if storytellers do not want to bore people and lose their audience’s attention.
As a final stage of development, a story might even emerge from the interaction of multiple users (I call it MORPS: Massive Online Role-Playing Story). But realizing a concept like this would be very time-consuming and the result would be very similar to a game. A good story, on the contrary, requires a solid storyline, a certain framework. Nevertheless, modern stories live from cooperation between narrators and their audience.
Corporeal: Feel the story
Attention is no longer the most important currency of narration. Nowadays, narration is the opportunity to let the audience live real experiences. Audiences should not only notice our stories but should also perceive and physically feel us. Let’s be honest: in view of the famous 7,000 advertising messages we receive per day, even the best WhatsApp message in the bathroom won’t leave a lasting impression.
That’s why I’m a great friend of making the most of the experiential possibilities of modern technology — whatever the scale. As storytellers, our means range from the vibration of a smartwatch to underline an important moment as a way of “advertising” an experience, to an immersive VR experience. But between the two extremes, there are many other options and nuances for influencing recipients’ perception in “real life.” It’s called augmented reality for a reason. AR can transport deceptive, haunting images into people’s lives by any number of means. The more situations and senses we influence, the more lasting our impression will be.
As I mentioned above, this text describes my first thoughts on the topic. It is incomplete and still lacks supporting evidence and examples. There is still a lot to research, contemplate, and complete. Story/CO will have to be revised again and again; ideally with the help of your feedback.
But there is one thing I am very sure of: we must continue to develop as storytellers in order to remain relevant. Good stories may very well continue to function structurally and contextually as they did 1,000 years ago. They still need a beginning, a middle, and an end. They need protagonists with whom we can identify and obstacles to overcome. But in order to get and keep our audience’s attention in the future, storytelling must evolve. We don’t necessarily have to tell different stories, but we do have to tell our stories differently.
That’s why I designed Story/CO.
This is the english translation of a text originally published in german on LinkedIn.
