Stories that Move Mountains: Storytelling and Visual Design for Persuasive Presentations

6

How

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher and author of the Tao Te Ching (604 BC - 531 BC)

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare”

When an organization plans a new project, someone, typically a project manager, must list all the tasks that will be required, break these activities down to a level of detail suitable for determining the resources necessary, and then track and manage these activities as the change is implemented. We are going to do something similar in this chapter for the content of your visual story. The information that you capture in this chapter is the basis for the sequence of activities that the characters in the story will follow, literally or metaphorically.

As you consider “How” a change must take place, think about the sequence of events that your characters will follow. The sequence has to be realistic for the audience to believe in it, and they should be able to identify with the progress of the characters. Your story may have unexpected turns, subplots to deal with specific issues, and climaxes where everything is put at risk. The story cannot be an unordered jumble of scenes that make no sense to the audience. Flashbacks and convoluted intertwined storylines of unrelated participants are best left to Hollywood directors with eight figure production budgets. But we are jumping ahead a little. We will develop the structure of the story in Chapter 10. For now all the ...