Recommendations for communicating something difficult – related to the climate crisis – through stories

1) Try to ground the difficult in the familiar
Axelrod & Kahn (2023) show that learning is enhanced when data is linked to personal stories. In
storytelling, this means, for example:

• Start with the personal (family, relationships, everyday life)
• Let the difficult (migration, climate, crises) grow out of the familiar

This makes complex topics emotionally accessible.

2) Make use of so-called ‘intergenerational’ perspectives

Families often engage in a dialogue across generations. In storytelling, you can, for example:

• Show how generations understand climate challenges differently
• Let conflicts and reconciliations emerge through memories, stories and information

• Use migration, climate, or crises as something that is experienced differently by young and older people

This creates depth and complexity without becoming didactic.

3) Create ‘co-creations’ between narratives and the audience

Creativity and co-creation of stories (Andersen, 2022; Boykoff, 2021) can open up new perspectives. The so-called CSAT* model can be applied to dialogue-creating narratives:

• Let the audience help piece things together or come up with hypotheses
• Avoid explaining everything and thereby create space for interpretation and involvement

This makes difficult topics more engaging and less instructive. Take, for example, the series Familier som vores (2024) or the film Før Stormen (2023) as a starting point and involve the audience in finding new solutions to the story’s dilemmas. Or involve them in thinking: “What if this action took place here? How should we approach it then?”

*CSAT = Co-Construct, Situate, Advance a Theory; more about CSAT model below

4) Offer the audience hope and a sense of agency

Hawley & Mocatta (2022) emphasize the importance of replacing hopelessness and climate anxiety with hope and agency. In storytelling, this means, for example:

• Avoid purely dystopian narratives
• Show small, realistic, and relatable actions that make a difference

• Let characters find solutions, not just problems
• Focus on so-called “underdog” characters who overcome difficult challenges despite the odds – such as the film Erin Brockovich (2000)

This makes heavy topics such as climate, coastal protection, or other crises more bearable and hopeful to discuss.

5) Use ‘fact-based dreaming’

From Hawley & Mocatta’s article (2022), we learn to combine facts with visions. In fiction, you can, for example:

• Let characters imagine alternative futures and scenarios
• Use dreams or imagination as narrative devices

• Make the difficult concepts more manageable and relatable through concrete examples

6) Let characters ask critical questions

Bobkowski & Etheridge emphasize the importance of critical questions. In storytelling, you can, for example:

• Let characters discover flaws, make mistakes – and use this as a plot device
• Let this create suspense and reflection

This makes heavy topics such as climate, coastal protection, or other crises more bearable and hopeful to discuss.

7) Establish connections between the individual and the structural

Axelrod & Kahn (2023) show that families link personal migration experiences to larger societal conditions. In storytelling, you can, for example:

• Let a personal story reflect a larger crisis
• Let small choices have large consequences
• Use micro-histories to shed light on macro-problems
• Make complex topics understandable without oversimplifying them

8) Use ecocinematic techniques: sensuality and ethics

Ecocinema (Hawley & Mocatta, 2022) is about creating experiences that, among other things, connect nature, ethics, and emotions. In storytelling, you can, for example:

• Use slow, sensory scenes to encourage reflection
• Let nature be a participant in the story/dialogue
• Use silence, images, and mood to communicate difficult concepts

In that way, you can give space to reflection rather than over-explanation.

9) Let ‘data’ become characters

Axelrod & Kahn (2023) illustrate that data becomes meaningful only when it is connected to people. In storytelling, you can do the same:

• Let a graph, a number, or a statistic be what drives a character on a journey
• Make data part of the character’s identity or conflict

But make sure that data is connected to emotions; otherwise, data in itself can have a demotivating effect on recipients of the story or on those participating in a debate about it.

10) Show aspects of sustainability and climate action through subtle elements in the story

Show characters cycling, living peacefully by the sea, fishing, growing their own vegetables, seaweed, and so on.

This way, you avoid moralizing narratives in which the sea and climate challenges become tiring and “in your face” to watch or listen to. Instead, you inspire through elements that are subtle and stand in the background of the story.

Recent Danish series that incorporate climate/nature relations

• Valdes jul – Skovens vogter
  Director: Morten Boesdal Halvorsen
  Year: 2023
  Type: TV Christmas calendar (TV 2, Cosmo Film)
• Valdes jul – Vintermiraklet
  Director: Morten Boesdal Halvorsen
  Year: 2025
  Type: TV Christmas calendar (TV 2, Cosmo Film)
  

   

• Familier som vores
  Director: Thomas Vinterberg 
  Year: 2024
  Type: TV series (TV 2, Zentropa)