Storytelling for Planners

Scribe Technical’s writing guides are meant for subject matter experts in government, industry, or non-profits who want to build their writing skills and be a more effective professional.

Be heard! These guides are packed with principles and techniques you can apply to all the documents you prepare, and include exercises, practice cases, and resources you can use to continually improve.

How do you write professional documents that meet all the requirements, but also reflect your unique, expert voice and perspective? What if you could express your complex ideas and analysis in a way that’s more exciting than “just the facts”, but still advance your project?

This writing guide shows urban planners and other community-building professionals how to tell a story that’s relevant, interesting, and clear – in their own style.

As a planner, you’ve chosen an exciting profession, focused on the future liveability of our communities and cities. Learning to write your documents with a compelling storyline will help you achieve your vision and objectives – and get positive feedback! But while a storyline is something we all intuitively understand, it can be difficult to apply the techniques of storytelling to our business documents.

In five short chapters, this guide provides planners with the storytelling techniques they need to write a clear, logical, and easy-to-read story that readers will follow and understand. Along with practice exercises, this writing guide covers:

• Understanding the structure behind a great story
• How to launch a great planning story, with a template or without
• Techniques for providing a logical progression of ideas and creating flow
• Addressing impediments that interrupt a great story
• Things to look for when reviewing your drafts.

This product is available as a downloadable PDF. First published in 2023.