Story as strategy: What writing climate fiction teaches us about communicating sustainability

In this episode, we talked about Solitaire's remarkable new novel — but the most useful part of the conversation wasn’t about the book’s alternative Roman Empire or its sword-wielding heroine. It was about what writing fiction taught her about what makes any story actually work. Solitaire’s biggest takeaway is deceptively simple: Stories are not about issues, they are about people. Not systems, trends, frameworks or even impacts.People.That sounds obvious, until you look closely at most sustainability communications. We routinely aspire to tell stories when we’re actually merely presenting information: emissions trajectories, regulatory developments, technology roadmaps, ESG metrics.All are important. Most are necessary. And little of it, on its own, is storytelling.