7 Types of Story — And Why Choosing One Isn’t the First Question
Stories help us understand things.
They give shape to ideas, make complicated things easier to grasp and allow us to see an organisation through the experiences of real people.
For businesses, that makes storytelling incredibly powerful.
There are several recognised types of story that organisations can use — from Origin Stories and Impact Stories to stories built around values, purpose and change.
Understanding them is useful.
But over the years, I’ve come to believe there’s a question that needs to be asked before choosing any of them.
What isn’t happening today that needs to be happening?
Because your organisation doesn’t really need an Origin Story, an Impact Story or a Values Story.
It needs somebody to understand something, believe something, trust something or do something that isn’t happening now.
Only when we understand that problem should we decide which story might help solve it.
With that in mind, here are seven types of story — and the job each of them can do.
1. The Why Story
A Why Story explores the reason an organisation, business or individual does what they do.
Not the mission statement.
Not the polished paragraph on the About page.
The real reason.
Often that reason can be found in a particular experience, frustration, belief or moment that changed something for the person behind the organisation.
A good Why Story helps an audience understand the motivation behind the work.
That can be particularly valuable when people understand what an organisation does but haven’t yet understood why they should care.
The most interesting Why Stories usually aren’t about the organisation at all.
They’re about the problem the organisation couldn’t ignore.
2. The Teaching Story
Sometimes the problem isn’t trust or awareness.
It’s understanding.
Perhaps your organisation does something complicated. Perhaps customers don’t understand why your process matters. Or maybe an important piece of expertise is hidden behind technical language that makes perfect sense internally but means very little outside the business.
That’s where a Teaching Story can become powerful.
Instead of simply explaining something, we allow an audience to understand it through an experience.
A person encounters a problem.
They discover something they didn’t know.
Their understanding changes.
And through their experience, ours does too.
The best Teaching Stories don’t feel like lessons.
They feel like discoveries.
3. The Values Story
Almost every organisation has values.
Far fewer can show us what those values actually look like.
Words such as integrity, innovation, care, quality and people-first appear on thousands of websites. On their own, they tell us very little.
A Values Story provides evidence.
Rather than saying:
“We care about our customers.”
Show me the moment somebody went further than they needed to.
Rather than telling me:
“Our people matter.”
Show me the decision the organisation made when putting people first actually cost something.
Values become believable when we can see them being lived.
That’s the job of a Values Story.
4. The Impact Story
An Impact Story answers a deceptively simple question:
What changed because this organisation exists?
Businesses naturally want to talk about their products, services, expertise and capabilities.
The audience is often more interested in what happened because of them.
That makes the person experiencing the change incredibly important.
Instead of making the organisation the hero, an Impact Story often works better when the customer, patient, employee, beneficiary or community takes centre stage.
What were they trying to achieve?
What was preventing them?
What changed?
And what became possible afterwards?
The organisation still matters.
But we understand its value through the difference it made.
5. The Vision Story
Some stories aren’t about what has happened.
They’re about what could happen.
A Vision Story helps an audience understand the future an organisation is trying to create.
That might mean taking employees through a period of change, helping investors understand an ambition, introducing customers to a new way of thinking or bringing people together around an idea that doesn’t yet fully exist.
The danger with Vision Stories is that they can quickly become corporate aspiration.
Statements.
Promises.
Slides filled with words like transformation.
A good Vision Story makes the future tangible.
It shows us what could be different, why that difference matters and what needs to happen to get there.
6. The Origin Story
Origin Stories are probably one of the most familiar forms of business storytelling.
How did the company begin?
Where did the idea come from?
Who started it?
But chronology alone doesn’t make an interesting story.
The useful question is:
What happened that made somebody believe this business needed to exist?
There is usually a problem somewhere.
A frustration.
Something somebody believed could be done differently.
A moment when an idea moved from thought to action.
That’s where the interesting part of an Origin Story normally lives.
Not simply:
“We started the company in 2008.”
But:
“Something wasn’t working — and we decided to do something about it.”
7. The Objections Story
Sometimes people understand what you do perfectly well.
They simply don’t believe it’s right for them.
Perhaps they think it will cost too much.
Take too long.
Be too complicated.
Not work in their situation.
Or perhaps they’ve tried something similar before and been disappointed.
The instinctive response is often to argue against the objection.
A story can do something more powerful.
Find somebody who once believed exactly the same thing.
What were they worried about?
Why did they hesitate?
What eventually persuaded them to try?
And what happened next?
Instead of the organisation saying:
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
Someone the audience recognises is effectively saying:
“I worried about that too.”
That’s a very different conversation.
The Eighth Question: What Needs to Change?
The seven types of story are useful.
I still use many of these ideas when thinking about stories.
But my thinking about where the process begins has changed considerably.
Because there’s a danger in starting with:
“Which type of story should we tell?”
It assumes that telling a story is already the answer.
Today, I would start somewhere else.
What isn’t happening today that needs to be happening?
Perhaps customers aren’t understanding the real value of what you do.
Perhaps talented people aren’t choosing to work for you.
Perhaps employees don’t understand where the organisation is going.
Perhaps an important piece of expertise is almost invisible from the outside.
Perhaps people know what you do but don’t trust you enough to take the next step.
Or perhaps something genuinely remarkable is happening inside the organisation that nobody outside it understands.
Those are communication problems.
And they’re much more interesting to me than simply deciding whether somebody needs an Origin Story or an Impact Story.
From Storytelling to Narrative Architecture
This shift in thinking has changed the way we work at Autumn Films.
We call it Narrative Architecture.
Before deciding what to film, we diagnose the communication problem.
What isn’t happening?
Who needs to think, feel or act differently?
What’s preventing that from happening now?
What happens if nothing changes?
And what would success actually look like?
Only then do we start thinking about the narrative.
Sometimes the answer might be an Impact Story.
Sometimes an Origin Story.
Sometimes several stories working together.
And sometimes the conversation may reveal that film isn’t the first thing the organisation needs at all.
That’s important.
Because the objective isn’t to find a reason to make a film.
It’s to find the story capable of doing a useful job.
Explore our Narrative Architecture approach →
A Story Should Have a Job
There’s another question I now ask when thinking about any piece of work:
What should be different after somebody has seen it?
That’s the test.
Not whether the film looks beautiful.
Not whether we’ve captured impressive drone shots.
Not whether people say they enjoyed watching it.
What changed?
Did somebody understand something they didn’t understand before?
Did they trust something they previously doubted?
Did they recognise value they’d previously overlooked?
Did they take an action they hadn’t been prepared to take?
Storytelling isn’t the objective.
Change is.
The story is simply one of the tools we can use to help create it.
The Camera Comes Later
So yes, understanding the seven types of story is useful.
They give us different ways of looking at organisations, people and ideas.
But choosing the type of story isn’t the first decision.
First, understand the problem.
Then understand the audience.
Then understand what needs to change.
After that, we can decide which story deserves to be told.
And only then should we start thinking about cameras.
What Isn’t Happening That Needs to Be Happening?
You don’t need a video brief.
You don’t need to know what kind of story you need.
You don’t even need to know whether film is the answer.
If something important in your organisation is being misunderstood, overlooked or failing to connect, start there.
Tell me what’s not working.