What Makes an Effective StoryMap

Planning an engaging story takes practice, and there are definitely a few tricks to getting it right. To help you master these skills, let’s run through some of the major steps you should take in the pre-production phase of the story crafting process. These include:

Identifying your target audience

• • An important place to start with any story is determining its intended audience: Who, specifically, are you creating this content for? The answer to this question will have a significant impact on your story’s tone, vocabulary, emotional arc, and permissible level of detail.
  • Your target audience should never be “everyone.” That’s setting the bar unrealistically high, and it makes it rather impossible to answer the two questions that come next. If you need to target lots of different audiences, repurpose your content and create versions more closely tailored to the needs of each group.
  • Ask yourself how much knowledge you can reasonably assume your target audience has about your given subject; if they’re new to it, avoid jargon and keep things focused at a high level; if they’re subject matter experts, don’t bore them by restating the most basic principles.
  • Think about how you can make your story relatable to your target audience. Can you include a character in it, with whom they’ll identify? Can you describe a scenario similar to one they’ve likely been in themselves? If you can find a way to relate to your readers, the chances of them hanging on every word of your story increase exponentially.

Defining your key takeaways

• • A common pitfall for many storytellers is trying to fit too much into one piece. You might be extremely excited about or invested in your topic, but chances are your readers aren’t—at least to the same degree. Don’t try to throw every single detail at them. Instead, figure out what’s the most important message for them to remember if they only recall one or two things from your story. Write these key points down for easy reference, then be strict about keeping those few takeaways at the center of your work. This will be especially important when you’re creating your outline(s).
  • Identify your key takeaway(s) by asking yourself why you’re even making this story in the first place; your motivation will usually be closely linked with what it is you want others to know.
  • While it’s okay to have more than one key takeaway, you should limit yourself to three at most. Any more than that and you’ll have too many ideas competing for a reader’s attention, which can make their experience draining or confusing.
  • This is also a good time to define your story’s goals and success metrics. Is there something you want readers to do, now that they know your key takeaway? How will you know if you’ve successfully spurred them to action? From link clicks, to pageviews, to social shares, there are lots of ways you can measure success; the most appropriate one will depend on your goal.

Creating a content inventory

• • Now that you’ve identified your core messages, take stock of what you have—and what you’ll need—to convey these points to your audience. Don’t worry about a specific structure just yet, you can get to that in a moment. But first, come up with a list of the visual assets, data visualizations, anecdotes, etc. that will bring your message to life for a reader, and leave it lingering in their mind. Which of these assets do you already have on hand? Are there maps or infographics you need to make? What about examples you need to track down?
  • Gathering your different pieces of content now will make it easier to outline and assemble your story. Plus, this exercise can help set expectations for workload by identifying how many things you’ll need to create for a specific story.
  • A variety of media is a must for digital storytelling. Photos, videos, and maps can pull a reader into a story in a way the written word rarely can, so make sure you have enough visual assets to speak to each message in your story. If you’re telling a story about a journey, or series of events, you should have visuals to illustrate each part of the sequence you’re describing.
  • Along those lines, you want diversity in the views your media provides. By this I mean a mix of wide shots to set the scene and close-up detail shots that help readers feel like they’re part of the setting. You’ll need both views working together to really transport your audience.
  • Make sure your visual elements have a consistent look to them, so they naturally feel like they belong to the same story.

Drafting an outline

• • With your content inventory complete, you can pivot to thinking about how you might weave all these pieces together. One of the easiest ways to do this is by creating a story outline.
  • Outlines can take a variety of formats, from a simple bulleted list, to a full-blown storyboard, a slide deck, or even a collection of index cards you shuffle around on your desk. The exact format isn’t very important—what matters most is that you choose whichever one makes it easiest for you to experiment and get creative.
  • Make sure your story starts off with a compelling hook—something attention-grabbing or irresistible to suck your target audience in.
  • Once you have your audience’s attention, keep it by introducing some tension to the narrative arc. Tension is what happens when there is a gap between what is (like a newly discovered giraffe species) and what could be (that species disappearing entirely, or existing for future generations to enjoy). Readers naturally want this tension to be resolved, and will stay engrossed in your story so long as they feel they’re making progress toward closing that gap.
  • Once you’ve settled on an outline, run it by someone who resembles a member of your target audience. If you find that their takeaway isn’t what you hoped, it’s a lot easier to make adjustments at this stage than after you already assembled all your content in the story builder

Start with a bang

• • Don’t ease into your story. Grab your readers by the lapels with a strong image—and a strong title.
  • There’s a reason we don’t give authors the option of using a map as the title image. As much as we love maps, we feel that images or short videos evoke a more immediate, visceral response.

Add a hero

• • People love people. They love to look at them, they love to read about them. If you can, find one or more interesting characters to incorporate into your narrative.

Give your story rhythm

• • Not all stories need this, but having a repeating element or theme can lend structure to your story. Rhythm is comforting. Repetition enables your readers to settle in and anticipate a series of new items, new insights.

Create a little world 

• • You want to immerse your readers into an experience. That means not just writing a good piece of text; it means striving to unify all the elements of your narrative into a harmonious visual and editorial whole. One of the most effective ways to do this is to use color consistently and judiciously. Try choosing a limited color palette, and then deploying it throughout your story—in type treatments, infographics, maps, and images.

One size doesn’t fit all

• • We’ve worked hard to make sure story maps work on a variety of screen sizes—PC, tablet, mobile. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be thinking about how your narrative will look in these various contexts.

Think big. Think small.

• • If you’re into maps, you know that scale is really, really important. A small-scale map provides an overview; a large-scale map shows local detail. Changing scales also works as a storytelling technique. Starting with a local or individual example, then “zooming out” for the bigger picture, can be an effective way to introduce a general topic or issue. Conversely, you can start with an overview, then come in close.

Use active and passive maps

• • Maps can serve lots of purposes within stories. They can play bit parts, such as simply locating where a story takes place. They can play starring roles, showing interrelationships or visualizing complex analyses or datasets. And they can play various supporting roles. For more on this, check out our “Maps in Dramatic Roles” story.

Keep it short and sweet

• • We know you love your work, or your hobby, or your cause. And we know you can describe your passions in endless detail. But most of us don’t have the patience to dive deep into a lengthy story—especially on the web, a medium that is rife with temptations to click away.

Make a call to action

• • Now that you’ve inspired your audience, don’t leave your readers hanging. Give them something to do—even if it’s just providing a link to more information. If you’re telling a story about a cause or issue, it’s doubly important to conclude your narrative with one or more calls to action. A successful story map inspires readers; you want to turn that inspiration into action.

Content in this section was adapted from “Nine Steps to Great Storytelling” (ESRI StoryMaps)

Thinking through the foundational elements of your story is essential for success. Use this worksheet is a tool to identify some key story components before you dive into the ArcGIS StoryMaps builder. 

Elevator pitch: What and Why?

• • What is the purpose of your story, or why are you making it?

Who is your intended audience?

• • Think about who you want to read your story: funders, policy makers, local stakeholders, friends, family, general public, scientists…

What are the key takeaways for your readers?

• What do you need your readers to know after finishing the story?

Does your story have a call to action?

• What do you want someone to do, think, or feel after they’ve finished reading? This can be anything from signing up for a newsletter, to volunteering for a cause, to learning more with another related piece of content.

What content do you have already, and what content do you still need?

• • Think about media that might be useful for telling this story (photos, videos, audio, maps, infographics, etc.). List any media content that you have or need to get that will help support your story.
    1. Have:
    2. Need:

Do you have any data that supports your story? If you don’t have what you need, do you know of other sources that might?

• • List any data—spatial or otherwise—that could help explain your key takeaways outlined above.
    1. Have:
    2. Need:

When, where, and how do you want to promote your story?

1. • Will you distribute your story through social media? Email? Something else? Are there individuals or organizations you can partner with to share it more widely? Do you need shared language or other materials for any coordinated promotion?

Content in this section was adapted from “Planning Your Next Story Map” (ESRI StoryMap worksheet)

Four Ways to Tell a Story With Place (ArcGIS Blog)

Planning and Outlining Your Story Map: How to Set Yourself up for Success (ArcGIS Blog)

ArcGIS StoryMaps planning worksheet

Nine Steps to Great Storytelling (ArcGIS blog)

ArcGIS Storymaps blog