Visitor experiences as pick-a-path stories

What are the different ways we tell stories as human beings? Many of the books we read, and films we watch, tell linear, chronological stories: the audience is led from one scene to another from beginning, to middle, to end. 

Disney’s Marlin and Nemo on their own adventure

In A Wizard of Earthsea, we follow Ged on his journey to become a wizard and quest to defeat the shadow creature that he accidentally brought into the world. In Finding Nemo, we follow Marlin as he embarks on a journey to find his son and bring him home.

Not all books or films follow this linear pattern — some jump around between plotlines or characters, contain distinct parallel plots, or mix up past and present. But even these stories with deliberately jumbled chronologies mostly follow a series of events predetermined by the creator and are told in a specific order. 

By contrast, some stories leave the creation of the plot to the audience — you could call these “interactive stories”. The “author” creates the setting, characters and events, but the audience experiences their own individual story based on their interactions with the world the author has created. 

Most spatial visitor experiences are both non-linear and interactive, because they unfold not just in time, but in space. Visitors can (and always do) choose the order they do things in and organise the stories they hear or read in their own way. 

This ability for visitors to pick their own path means that storytelling in places like museums is participative. Where films and books can strap you into a story, most spatial visitor experiences are more like games or pick-a-path books: visitors can choose the order they do things in and they can interpret a whole story by piecing together the parts. In a very real way, the visitors make their own story out of what you provide for them.

Just for fun, we’ve created a little interactive pick-a-path story to show you what we mean.