Creating story-based concepts, storylines and storytelling products

This article was written for Uncover magazine - Meaningful Leisure Experiences. 

Author: Moniek Hover is professor of Storytelling at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

Ranging from World War II to cycling routes
To bring World War II heritage from the 's-Hertogenbosch archives to life, we developed ‘Encounters in Wartime’ with the creative company Wijdoendingen and 's-Hertogenbosch Heritage. This mobile, interactive exhibit uses speech recognition technology to enable visitors to engage with three WWII-era characters through interactive dialogues. Our role was to develop all storytelling aspects, including research, character development, scripts, and dialogues, while WDD handled the technology, design, and realization of the exhibit.

The province of Noord-Brabant (the Netherlands) is renowned for its excellent bicycle infrastructure, picturesque countryside, and numerous attractions. VisitBrabant Routebureau aims to enhance the province’s recreational offerings through routes based on local and regional stories. Since 2019, experts from the Storytelling professorship and VisitBrabant (the Netherlands) have created approximately 12 bicycle routes based on local folktales and legends, three routes themed around Made In Brabant (industrial heritage), and three routes centred around the Dutch-Belgian border. These routes enhance the visitor experience, strengthen the tourism profile, increase visitor spending, and contribute to a vibrant living environment for residents. Story-based routes also help develop networks between entrepreneurs and local stakeholders, ensuring a flow of additional ideas and resources. 

Dealing with ‘fake’ and ‘real’
The most urgent challenge for all creative professionals is the rise of AI, particularly large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, in generating text and images. The professorship in Storytelling has experimented with AI, such as in the ‘Encounters’ project, and found that LLMs cannot yet create subtext - the underlying meanings and feelings that evoke emotional responses in people. This intangible spark is what makes storytelling deeply human. 

The traditional distinction between ‘narrative’ (aimed at objective information) and ‘story’ (aimed at evoking emotional meaning) is becoming blurred. Storytelling can be powerful but also dangerous when being misused. As the online world becomes more fake’, there is a counter-effect where people seek ‘real’ experiences, especially during leisure activities.  

We sometimes use fiction in our design projects. For example, ‘The Photo Album of Marie and Stefan’ is an interactive digital exhibit with fictional characters. It is crucial, especially in  museums, to clarify the degree of fiction. At the Maczek Memorial in Breda we ensured this by adding: ‘This album could have belonged to a family in Breda’. The stories in the album are based on the true accounts of volunteers at the Maczek Memorial, often children of the Polish soldiers honoured in the museum. In this sense, what we created is ‘truthful’. We checked with historians and volunteers whether what we created could have happened in this way. 

Educating storytellers
Our students learn storytelling principles and techniques through education and practice, from our own experience of storytelling projects, but also by watching series, reading books, and listening to podcasts. However, becoming a good storyteller requires putting your heart and soul into it. It is often a matter of 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration. Not all students have the innate imagination and creativity required, but our storytelling projects are always team efforts. Those who research, manage, and facilitate the creative process are just as important as the storytellers themselves.

Involving stakeholders
We always involve clients and other stakeholders in our storytelling projects through co-creative sessions. We also run storytelling workshops for leisure and tourism professionals to help them strengthen their own stories, such as tourism entrepreneurs in the Achterhoek region. It is crucial that the local community embraces what we develop, feeling ownership and the ability to further the project. We see great examples in the spin-offs from, for example, story-based routes. Entrepreneurs create food and beverage concepts aligned with the stories, like Black Kate beer and Black Kate pancakes, while municipalities facilitate local events for both visitors and residents, like the Gang of the White Feather open-air theatre show.