Chapter 5-3 The Stories & Protagonists

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5.4 The storytelling & interviewing approach

In order to put together stories of everyday lives of Muslim protagonists that have the chance of softening attitudes of the target middle audience, it was key that the stories which were built on the unifying values were warm, engaging and authentic. The idea from Marshall Ganz captured in Figure 2 below guided the #KommMit work, i.e. that effective narrative storytelling of experience builds on pathos and tells us why the issue matters4 .
 

Figure 19: The role of stories in opening a dialogue (adapted from Ganz 2011)

A second inspiration in building stories that embody a warm, authentic, human quality was the Humans of New York series5 . So, the key storytelling principles underpinning the #KommMit pilot were:

 
5.4.1 Authenticity & humanity through first person voice & stories

The Ayoub videos recount the stories about his professional life and passion for baking that he shared in his interview. While there is a narration text, the only voice you hear is Ayoub’s. In addition, through the interview process, it became evident that he has a lot of personal charm and so, we tried to bring this out in the videos by featuring him doing his work on his own, with colleagues and simply, showing his craft, i.e. a show, not tell level of insight into him as a person. While this level of authenticity and humanity is more challenging to achieve in storyboard form (e.g. for Murat), the key messages and emotional links in the storyboards tested with the target audience are all quotes which came directly from the protagonists. This approach is intended to build human connection and also as much as possible, remove any question around authenticity – these are real people speaking their own words.
 

5.4.2 A focus on beliefs, thoughts, experiences & values

The content of the pilot are deceptively simple and short stories, but the fact that they all include reflective elements, thoughts and beliefs from the protagonists really adds depth and helps to make the human connection around their work. Two good illustrations of this are the honey story from Murat (See the first storyboard in 5.1.1) and the Ayoub video of his simple pleasure in tasting hot bread out of the oven, with butter. These moments of authenticity came through the interview process and reveal more of the personal joys of the protagonists, which undoubtedly is one reason these stories tested really well.

 
5.4.3 Storytelling arc: Problem, Solution, Hope

This is advice that storytellers the world over give: in order to be engaging for people, stories need to have an arc of a protagonist coming to (positive) outcomes through overcoming adversity. There are many different ways of describing this story arc, for example Choice, Challenge, Outcome6 , as we do in Figure 3 below. However, the one we drew heavily on for the #KommMit pilot was provided by Restless Communications - Problem, Solution, Hope.

Figure 20 - the arc of engaging storytelling (ICPA 2018)
 

For example, in the renovation story for Murat (See storyboard in section 5.1.2), the challenge he experienced was building trust in his new community as the new carpenter and as a Muslim. Step by step, this does happen and he really becomes a trusted ‘keyholder’ in the community. Another approach in some of the Ayoub stories was to add more issue-based problem stories, where Ayoub and his bakery colleagues are part of the solution and hope. For example, in the storyboard in section 5.1.3, Ayoub and his colleagues are the answer for those in Lünen who don’t have to travel far to find a local bakery, a reality which is unfortunately, becoming more commonplace nowadays in North Rhein Westphalia.

 
5.4.4 A semi-structured interview approach 

To get to the warm human stories that really bring out authenticity, there is a need to invest time in building trust with protagonists, so that you can reach a level of comfort with each other that leads to them more organically and naturally sharing their personal views, beliefs and deeper feelings. To quote Brandon Stanton from Humans of New York: “The truth comes haltingly – after the silence – and it is these moments when they are saying the stuff that’s the strong truth that you want”7 . 
 
Secondly, the methodological approach to conducting such interviews that aim to build this kind of closer connection to the interviewee is called a semi-structured approach8 . Put simply, the interviewer develops an agenda of open questions you want to ask and based on how the conversation goes, you try to dig deeper in the areas that the interviewee is interested to talk about and also that overlap with your priorities – in the case of #KommMit, this is the value appeals and topline narratives in focus. In this approach, you need to factor in time for the discussion topics you have not planned for, which may unexpectedly come up and can be a source of some of the richest reflections. 
 
In practice, in the #KommMit project, the team interviewed two protagonists (Murat and Ayoub) over a two-day period: the focus on the first half day was socialising to get to know them a bit better and starting the conversation; and then having the more formal interview on the second day to go deeper into promising themes that came up on the first day. For each interview, the interview team went to the protagonists’ home town to meet them in their workplace, and sometimes also in their homes. This in-person contact is also important in building a trusting relationship and to immerse yourself in their community to better understand their stories. 
 
In preparation for the interviews, we had short online discussions with the protagonist to get to know each other and set up the interview, and also found whatever was available online about each protagonist. On this basis, and considering the unifying value appeals the #KommMit project was targeting, we developed an interview agenda to dig into areas that could be fruitful. For example, we knew the idea of apprenticeship/learning of trades and mentoring young people for the future was of interest. As evident in the third storyboard (in Section 5.1.3), Ayoub had a lot to say on this topic and was really passionate about his own craft and mentoring others, but this was not the case with Murat, (so, we couldn’t pick up that line in the stories for him).
 
 

 
5.5 Analysis, coding & story idea development

Each of the interviews generated quite a lot of recorded material, and the extensive transcripts were helpful and necessary in the process of generating story ideas and content that met the target for the #KommMit pilot of developing engaging and human stories. Put simply, the analysis process should allow you to understand the protagonist in detail and identify the most promising storylines to develop that are aligned with the target values and topline narratives for your project. In the end, this entails selecting the tip of the iceberg (from the all the material collected). In addition, investing in such a post-interview analytical process gives the team the depth of insight into the protagonist’s story that can nicely feed into further content and copywriting needed for social media.
 
The table below is a summary of the analytical process, with a team of two people working on the analysis for approximately five days for each protagonist:
 

Table 10: Steps in the interview data coding and analysis process
 

In the final step of the transcript analysis phase – generating story ideas for the protagonists – the team identified initial storylines that could be taken in many directions or also divided up into smaller ideas. After these steps, we were then ready to think about content for the #KommMit social media pilot.

5.5.1 From storylines to social media content – Hero, Hub, Hook

In order to brainstorm and build out many possible lines of content, the team led by Restless Communications, used an adaptation of the organising principle of the various content types commonly used in planning a social media campaign – Hero, Hub and Hygiene10 . To illustrate, the table below breaks down the different levels and how they structured the brainstorm:
 

Table 11: The Hero, Hub, Hook social media content build out approach

The photo below shows the brainstorming work we did as a group, showing how many ideas the group generated. This was a particularly helpful method that allowed the group to brainstorm in a semi-directed way and really worked well to expand everyone’s thinking beyond just the longer story-based content that tends to come from an interview process. For example, the first idea for a story around beekeeping for Murat and the ‘home sweet home’ hashtag were brainstormed here on the D5 card. Four further ideas brainstormed that ended in the renovation story for Murat were D3 (the church and the blue door), D1 and D8 (which are also renovation work he did) and the ‘step by step building of trust’ idea is there as idea D6.
 

Figure 21 – Content brainstorming using the Hero, Hub, Hook levels 

 
5.5.2 Working in storyboards with the KFC approach

Once the content ideas were generated, the team began to build out storyboards for the main ideas that showed promise. Section 5.1 shows three examples of this storyboard format from the most successful stories from the pilot. From the start of building the storyboards, we always had the boundaries of putting together a short video or possibly a picture story on a platform like Instagram. So, this entailed having four to seven main scenes with short supporting text, and arriving at the ‘find out more’ with project logo at the end. Through this process, the team employed the storytelling techniques detailed in section 5.3. 
 
An important approach in building the storyboards was to use the KFC method, as suggested by Restless Communications. As well as being the initials of a well-known fast food chain, the acronym also has the following meaning:

Table 12 – The KFC planning tool for storyboarding
 

Having the KFC approach was particularly helpful for team work through the drafting process as it allowed those providing feedback to understand what others were trying to achieve and to give constructive feedback. In addition, the KFC guidance is also particularly helpful for those shooting the videos based on the storyboards. 
 
In more practical terms, the initial storyboards were sketched in groups of four in a workshop and then taken on by teams of two people to build them out to a full draft. It was helpful to have someone in the team who is quite good at working with images and even drawing. The more in-depth storyboard building and drafting allowed the team to see which of the ideas had more promise, and allowed us to cut down to the ideas that were eventually used. Each of the final storyboards definitely went through approximately five rounds of feedback and drafts before being ready to be made into social media content.

 
5.6 Your storytelling & social media content work

By working your way through the set of checklists using the insights from the #KommMit case and practical methods and tools provided, you will have a good foundation and informed initial ideas for the different aspects of protagonist-centred storytelling for narrative change that can serve as a useful guide for decision making and taking this work forward in your team or your network. 

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• 4Marshall Ganz (2011) Public Narrative, Collective Action and Power.
• 5Girardin, Lauren (2021) 5 Storytelling Best Practices at the Heart of Humans of New York; Uruchima, Joanna (2019) “Humans Of New York” Brandon Stanton’s: Book Review ; Pompliano, Polina (2020) Inside the Mind of 'Humans of New York' Creator Brandon Stanton.
• 6Marshall Ganz (2011) Public Narrative, Collective Action and Power.
• 7Pompliano, Polina (2020) Inside the Mind of 'Humans of New York' Creator Brandon Stanton.
• 8Spradley (1979) The Ethnographic Interview Holt Rinehart & Winston, New York.
• 910Videofresh (2024) What is the Hub, Hero, and Hygiene Content Marketing Strategy?.