Dæmon Voices and a Discussion on Chronological Time

Philip Pullman is a masterful storyteller. I love his books for many reasons, but it boils down to how wonderfully he pulls me into his story.
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In Dæmon Voices, Pullman explores the act of storytelling. And while I picked this book up for my own pleasure (and my own curiosity and geekiness), I found myself thinking of museums and how we tell the stories we tell. (If you are a curator or educator who spends time crafting stories for audiences, you should absolutely pick this book up and read it. I whole-heartedly recommend Pullman's brilliant novels as well.)

Recently, Andrea Jones sent out this Tweet, to which I had an initial response: 

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The next day, I read Pullman's essay "Let's Write It In Red," and I immediately began reflecting on Andrea's Tweet and that response of mine. Why do audiences generally dislike disrupted chronology?

In this particular essay, Pullman discusses stories versus technique. That is, is the story you are telling compelling, or are you trying to jazz up a dud story in some fancy way? He likens it to cinematography, considering a normal perspective versus an unusual angle. Or drawing a figure from the top of the head versus straight-on. When you come at a story from an unusual angle, it can hide myriad sins within the story itself, which Pullman explains this way:

• "… if a story is told from an unusual angle, or in something fancy like the second person, or with alternative openings and unclosed endings, or larded through and through with flashbacks and flash-forwards and flashbacks within flashbacks, then you can't see so easily that it's poorly constructed out of thin materials. Tell it plainly, and if it still stands up, it works … the real challenge for the storyteller is the tale told simply."

In my response to Andrea, I didn't say not to tell history in a non-chronological format, but I did warn that audiences tend to dislike the unusual angles and approaches. There are reasons for that:

• When we as experts in the subject matter share content, we understand it more thoroughly and contextually than most audiences (who, in this case, are typically not historians). So we can make leaps that our audiences often struggle with. An unusual approach may make sense to us, but leave audiences perplexed and/or frustrated.
• As humans, we live in chronological time and are taught history that way … a different approach thus takes far more work to make sense of, and that in and of itself can turn off audiences. (I feel the same sense of irritation and disengagement about novels with flashbacks and other unusual approaches; it should only be done if it serves the story.)
• By relying on an unusual approach, we could focus too much on the approach and neglect the story … and the story won't stand.

Thus, there are risks to sharing history in a non-chronological way, and the biggest risk is losing our audience's attention and willingness to engage. 

Before I shared this essay on The Curated Bookshelf, I decided to share it with Andrea. Unsurprisingly, she had some interesting comments that I thought needed to be shared … here's our back-and-forth discussion.

• Andrea's response:  Exactly. It's not just about putting lipstick on a pig. It's about using the history to say something deeper about the human condition. And I think what you are weary of is just reorganizing just to be different, right? Because yes, agreed.
• Susie's response to Andrea: Yes and yes! History is about the human condition, and museum-goers deeply appreciate that … and want to explore it. But reorganizing it just to be different doesn't serve that purpose. As I mentioned, there are novels they disrupt time and irritate me because it is all smoke and mirrors … and no story. But then there are some novels that turn chronological time on its head and come out with something stunning. Kristin Cashore's Jane Unlimited comes to mind. I should have been irritated by it, but I loved it. So it can be done by museums too, if done well.
• Andrea: The march through time is too encyclopedic. It really isn't telling a story at all. And like Rainey Tisdale has told me in the past - when the organization of your content looks and feels encyclopedic there is an overwhelming burden to include EVERYTHING. And we all know history museums are generally terrible at reducing the amount of content to a manageable amount.
• Susie: I am totally with you on that. Encyclopedias don't tell stories. They serve an excellent purpose, but I don't want to walk through one. And deep down, I don't think visitors do either. They want to know you know your stuff, that you are encyclopedic in possibilities from which to draw … but today, during their visit, you are only sharing a part in a meaningful way.
• Andrea: Let's go back to the chronological time thing. You are right to point out that it does take some work to orient people to a new structure when everyone is used to learning history chronologically. So let's get them UNused to it! And scaffold that learning curve.
• Susie: Yep, that is a big challenge. I've just wrapped up a qualitative panel of history teachers, and they talked a lot about struggling to teach kids the concept of chronological time. And now you're trying to undo that work. (Chuckling!) No, really, I think teachers are right to help kids understand chronological time … but they are trying to teach a big, comprehensive history over the course of a year. Museums rarely really need to do that in their galleries.

Now that doesn't mean Andrea shouldn't try to disrupt chronological time. Andrea is a gifted storyteller, and if I wanted my museum to try the non-chronological approach with history, she's who I would go to. I think she should try, because if she succeeded, that would likely help us engage more people with history.

But Andrea is also a very thoughtful interpreter who wants to understand how audiences respond to not only content but interpretive approaches. Knowing my concerns based on audience research, she's the type to think them through, and then make sure the story (and the audience) benefits from the unusual approach … and not mask a weak story.

Or, as Pullman would say, Andrea would stick to the path the story needs … and history deserves.


Full citation: Pullman, Philip. Dæmon Voices: Essays on Storytelling. Oxford: David Fickling Books, 2017.

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Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.