A galaxy far, far away...
What we can learn about data and narrative distance from Star Wars and a rural workforce development org
When I’m not working in the social sector, I’m a struggling novelist. Scratch that. I’m an aspiring novelist. As I’ve written before, the smallest word choice matters. Gotta believe to achieve!
On one of the many occasions in which my manuscript was rejected, a literary agent said something along the lines of how I wrote at a nineteenth-century distance—“which was fun… until it wasn’t.” I later understood what he meant when I took a writing class with the incredible Marjan Kamali, who introduced me to the concept of narrative distance.
Narrative distance refers to the degree of emotional proximity between the storyteller, the audience, and the characters. In film-speak, we use the camera to pan out to create a further narrative distance and zoom in to create a closer narrative distance.
Take Andor, the latest (and IMO, the best) show from the Star Wars universe. It starts with a single date—BBY, or Before the Battle of Yavin—which establishes, at least for avid enthusiasts, where we are in the the broader Star Wars saga. That’s as far as narrative distance will go. We get a little closer, while still keeping a pretty far distance. A panned-out camera gives us the gist of the setting—a rainy night, a dimly lit brothel—and the characters who populate it: a mysterious hooded man, some seedy-looking guards, a lone dancer, a bartender, a diversity of species. The camera zooms in on the mysterious man, Andor (played by Diego Luna), as he tries to get intel about his missing sister while the guards narrowly watch him.… some plot-building! Later, the camera zooms in even closer; we see raw emotion flitting across Diego’s ridiculously beautiful face as he recalls the last time he saw said sister.
This movement between narrative distances is critical. We need the farther distances to understand the context and setting. We need the middle distance to see some plot and action. And we need the closeup of Diego—this human moment—so that we actually give a damn about the quest of this random stranger in a made-up galaxy far, far away. In other words, this movement between narrative distances builds audience understanding, interest, and investment.
In social sector storytelling, we also need to create this movement. We need that far narrative distance to concisely and creditably convey the scope of our problem, the context in which we work, and the extent of any impact. We need that middle narrative distance to share that things are happening, and generate some interest—(this is where most organizations spend most of their storytelling energy, in the form of announcements and updates). Finally, we need that closeup of the human experience to make our audience care about what’s at stake. And whereas Disney has a whole army of cinematographers to create narrative distance, we in the social sector have… data!
Sorry if that was a letdown. Admittedly, using data to storytell doesn’t sound very sexy. When you think of data, you might think: boring! You think of spreadsheets and grant proposals, or annual reports that try to zhuzh up cold numbers with colorful infographics. Canva-generated pictograms, anyone?
In all reality, data is often boring and non-additive, because we:
isolate the data—banished to a bulleted list of statistics, a number on a standalone slide, a pull-out infographic, a specific section of a proposal—rather than continuously weave it throughout our storytelling
use only quantitative data (e.g. numbers), which limits us to that far narrative distance, or qualitative data (e.g. transcriptions, open-response surveys, recordings), which limits us to that near narrative distance, rather than moving between distances.
But data can be hugely exciting! And compelling! It can help us evoke settings, populate those settings with characters, and then make us care about what happens to them.
for example…
The Center on Rural Innovation (CORI) is a national nonprofit that supports innovation, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and tech job creation in rural communities. Like most organizations, they engage in “middle distance” storytelling with a routine stream of updates and announcements about what they’re doing. But CORI is uniquely good at using data to move between the “far distance” storytelling that illustrates the landscape and context in which they work and the “closeup” storytelling that makes the case for why an audience should care.
Let’s start with the far narrative distance. CORI publishes the Rural Aperture Project, a series of articles and data visualizations that examine the population of rural America. As the organization frankly points out in the series introduction: “Each person who imagines rural America will likely generate their own picture, whether it’s based on personal experience or based on what they’ve seen in the media.”
Totally! Audience members who read Hillbilly Elegy for their book club might otherwise imagine tech training programs for white coal miners in Appalachia. Audience members recalling national media depictions during the 2007 Great Recession might otherwise imagine coding programs for the “white working class” in an Ohio postindustrial small town. Or audience members who grew up reading Little House on the Prairie might otherwise imagine agricultural innovation incubators for white farmers and ranchers in the West and Midwest.
By using population data to “zoom out” on the landscape, CORI draws a clear picture of what and who they mean when they say they work with rural communities. This picture includes a diversity of geographies, with communities ranging from New England farmland to Tribal lands to the Mississippi Delta. They also illustrate the rich diversity of people who live in these communities, including “the 14 million Black, Hispanic or Latino, Asian, Native, and multiracial people who live in rural America.”
Beyond the moral implications of making sure that misconceptions don’t render these people invisible and erase their experiences from the rural story, there are important practical implications for CORI to set the scene. They are signaling to funders and other organizations focused on racially marginalized communities not to count them out as a partner. They are expressing welcome to communities who may be interested in joining their network but are unsure of whether they “fit.” They are putting some legitimacy behind their mission to create “inclusive tech economy ecosystems.”
Now for the close narrative distance. CORI publishes a Community Stories blog, which uses qualitative data—photographs, videos, and interviews—to zoom in on the personal stories of “people who are changing the narrative about what’s possible in rural America.” Take this photo essay, which profiles community members in Emporia, Kansas.
There is Mark, the entrepreneur who moved back to his hometown in his sixties to rediscover the “vast grasslands… and the rhythm to the seasons that I had never felt anywhere else.” He started Green Dot Bioplastics, making more eco-friendly and sustainable plastics. There is Tushar, the immigrant from Gwalior, India, who wanted to raise his children in a small safe town with clean air, and who found a job working in IT at the university. And there is Jordan, the young mother with a GED who became interested in network technologies while working for a local telecom company. She says, “That was the taste that I needed for my career because I started troubleshooting and doing tech support… and it was fascinating. That’s why I went to college at Flint Hills Technical College here. It was the path I never knew I needed. It turned me around.” In her photograph, she smiles at the camera with bright-eyed confidence.
Now, I don’t live in a rural community. I don’t work in a tech economy. But the close narrative distance offers me the “human moment” I need to relate to and empathize with people who do. It makes me feel a bit of “us-ness,” whereas before I might have looked upon rural communities as a world apart—a “them.” I am more invested in the success of a tech economy in Emporia, because I want Mark, Tushar, and Jordan (a fellow mom!) to succeed. The close narrative distance makes me start—at least a little—to care.
long story short…
Whenever I mention data and storytelling together to a social sector colleague, they invariably nod and say something like: “Yep, we need to get better at impact storytelling.” Or, “We have a ton of program evaluation data… we need to get that packaged for end-of-year report!” Or, “I know! I know! We need to start collecting impact data!”
Impact storytelling is incredibly important. I’ll devote at least a couple future posts to that subject. But data is a versatile tool that can and should be used to so much more narrative effect. We have to ask ourselves:
What is the landscape we seek to paint? How do we use quantitative data to define borders and populate that landscape?
Who are the people in the story who should make us care? How do we use qualitative data to intimately illustrate their strengths and struggles, travails and triumphs?
